Bessie toured the United States with her Harley-Davidson as her only traveling companion
Bessie Stringfield she was able to overcome all adversity and entered the Motorcycle Hall of Fame through the front door. The time has come to claim the figure of "Miami's Motorcycle Queen".
She managed to be a trailblazer in many ways, despite having all the cards stacked against her. In the 40's and 50's , when the women in USA practically relegated to housework, either in marriage or in domestic service, the African-American Bessie Stringfield was able to hit a good throttle and roar through the engine of his harley along the roads of Florida and across the country she, that she traveled alone until on eight occasions.
As befits the great myths, there is some confusion surrounding Bessie's early life. According to official records, born in March 1912 and her most direct descendants (nephews, since she had no children) say that her birth took place in ** Edenton, North Carolina **, the result of a couple formed by two black Americans: Maggie Cherry and James White.
But Bessie always preferred to dye the early years of her biography with certain Dickensian tints. According to her own account, she was born in Kingston ( Jamaica ), the daughter of an interracial couple. She lost her mother when she was very young. , later abandoned by her father on a Boston street. She was adopted by an Irish Catholic woman that she treated her like a daughter, to such an extent that she gave him a motorcycle when she was only 16 years old.
Faced with so much confusion (there are other versions that set her birth in 1911), there is no doubt that she was first bike came to cross her life in 1928 . She was a indian scout and she marked her beginnings as a passionate biker.
Bessie Stringfield was married and divorced six times, adopting the surname of her third husband. During World War II she worked for the Army as a motorized courier, maintaining her civilian status. She already had a Harley 61 , the first of 27 that she would have throughout her life.
She worked as a domestic worker in several houses, including the one in Robert Scott Thomas , who was a child at the time and today, at 72 years old, remembers the incredible stories that Bessie claimed to have starred in and he was fascinated by. Like hers ** her trips through the south of the United States **, an area where racial segregation prevailed, and she dared to defy the so-called Jim Crow Laws which remained in force until 1965 and whose motto was "separate but equal".
That meant he was persecuted by biker gangs or not allowed to stay in some establishments. Bessie even slept on her motorcycle at service stations on more than one occasion, but she always stood her ground, by her own account, because of her unwavering faith in God, whom she referred to as "the Man in Heights".
To pay for part of her trips, Stringfield came to perform in the popular Wall of Death attraction during carnivals. Her task was to ride her motorcycle in a closed circular area literally climbing the walls to the delight of an enthusiastic public.
on one occasion she came to win a race and they snatched the prize from her by taking off her helmet and verifying that she was a woman , mishap that she overcame with a huge smile and even greater dignity. Although not all were misfortunes in her busy life.
Robert Scott Thomas, heir to her legacy by not having children Stringfield , remember how on one occasion the motorized heroine she showed up with her Harley-Davidson perfectly polished at the door of your school to pick him and his brother up. All the children wanted to ride and became the great envy of the rest of their classmates.
Her older brothers never welcomed Bessie's love of motorcycles, although her nephews idolized her as an almost mythical figure. It was one of the tolls that she had to pay for being an advance in her time, even circulating among her descendants. the legend that she had worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and she had to get away from her family to protect her.
**In the 1950s Bessie Stringfield settled in Miami ** after spending a season in Indiana. She graduated and worked as a nurse, as well as founding the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club. She there she quickly began to be known by the nickname of the Miami Motorcycle Queen and she saw her fame and prestige increase.
For four decades she was a local celebrity who cruised the palm-lined streets on the back of her Harley-Davidson. Even in his old age he was still determined to drive his motorcycle , despite the restrictions that doctors had imposed on him due to a heart condition.
Bessie reigned over the asphalt of Miami for four decades on the back of her Harely-Davidson
Bessie Stringfield passed away on February 16, 1993. she, 82 years old, having become a myth for several aspects: her battle for the women's rights , her fight for equality of the black race and her determination to bring the motorcycling to the people.
She achieved all of this by doing what she liked the most: feeling free riding her motorcycle. In 2000, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame instituted the Bessie Stringfield Memorial Award. to recognize her contributions in the field of female motorcycling, and two years later Stringfield herself entered the Hall posthumously.
Her legacy has also been alive for five years in the Annual Bessie Stringfield All Female Ride , a women-only motorcycle race that takes place in mid-June (this year it will take place on the 22nd) and that travel the 1,238 kilometers that separate Atlanta from Milwaukee . Surely Bessie Stringfield would hit the gas and smile proudly.
Miami, the city that saw Bessie reign on two wheels