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A riveting, adventurous novel inspired by the life of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation, and found freedom in the air. For fans of Hidden Figures, The Great Circle, and I Was Amelia Earhart, A Pair of Wings is an epic novel about pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, whose story has waited 100 years to be told. A few years after the Wright Brothers' first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton ﬁelds with her family when an airplane flew right over their heads. It buzzed so low she thought she could catch it in her hands. Bessie wasn't afraid. Without even thinking, she spread her arms out and pretended she was flying. She knew there was freedom in those wings. The daughter of a woman born into slavery, Bessie answers the call of the great migration, moving to Chicago as a single woman. While working as a manicurist in the White Sox barbershop, she wins the backing of two wealthy, powerful Black men, Robert Abbott, the publisher of The Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, Chicago's first Black banker. Abbott becomes her mentor and chronicles her adventures, while the good-looking gun-toting Binga becomes her lover. Her first love, though, remains the airplane. But in 1920, no one in the U.S. will train a Black woman to fly, so 26- year-old Bessie learns to speak French and bets it all on an epic journey to Europe as she begins a quest to defy the odds and gravity itself. Two years ahead of Amelia Earhart, Bessie is molded b