Last Update: 28 October 2021
To say Bessie Stringfield was an amazing woman would be an understatement. She was the first African American woman to ride across the United States solo. During World War II she served as one of the few motorcycle dispatch riders for the United States military. Later nicknamed the Motorcycle Queen of Miami, and “BB” to her friends Stringfield was a pioneering motorcyclist, a trailblazer and an unmistakeable woman powered pioneer!
Bessie Stringfield’s Roots
Bessie, (Betsy Leonora Ellis) was born on 9 February 1911 in Kingston, Jamaica, to an interracial couple. Her father was Jamaican and her mother Maria Ellis was a white Dutch woman. Betsy and her parents migrated to Boston, Massachusetts but both died of smallpox. Bessie was only five years old when she was orphaned. She was shortly adopted by a wealthy devout Catholic Irish woman whose identity she never revealed.
In 1927, Bessie’s sixteenth birthday, her mother gave her a motorcycle – an Indian Scout “even though good girls didn’t ride motorcycles”, her mother would say. (Bessie would later switch to Harley-Davidson motorbikes and owned 27 in her lifetime). Bessie had no previous knowledge of operating a motorcycle but started the motorcycle and mastered it.
Between the 1930s and the early 1940s, an incredibly young Bessie achieved eight long-distance solo rides across the United States.
Bessie criss-crossed the country, earning a living by performing as a carnival stunt-rider and hill-racer in the towns at she stopped at. Her stunts included riding side saddle, standing on one foot peg, laying down on the bike, jumping from one side of the bike to the other while riding, and the Wall of Death.
Due to her skin colour, Bessie Stringfield was regularly denied accommodations while travelling. She would use The Negro Motorist Green Book to find safe places to stay and eat in the Jim Crow south. When she could not find black folks to stay with, she was forced to sleep on her motorcycle at gasoline stations. She said she was never afraid on the road because the “Man Upstairs” was always with her.
Bessie Stringfield Owned 27 Motorcycles Throughout Her Lifetime
Bessie would often decide her next destination by tossing a penny on a map and then ride to wherever the penny landed. These became what Bessie called her “penny tours.”
Dispatch Rider During WWII
During World War II, from 1941 to 1945 Stringfield delivered classified documents to military bases across the country.
She became inspired to join to the dispatch after watching movie theatre newsreel featuring women helping the war effort. As a civilian she joined a black motorcycle dispatch unit of the army as the only woman, after passing rigorous training exercises. And even as a dispatch rider, with a military crest on the front of her motorcycle, she still encountered racism. Once she was followed by a man in a pickup truck who deliberately ran her into a ditch, violently knocking her off her bike. “I had my ups and downs”, Bessie would bravely, and humbly explain.
Don’t forget much of the country at the time still lacked major through-streets, many of which would have been barely paved, let alone lit or well-marked.
Settled in Miami
Bessie wed and divorced six times. After she and her first husband were deeply saddened by the loss of three babies, she had no more children. Upon divorcing her third husband, Arthur Stringfield, Bessie kept the Stringfield name. She said, “He asked me to keep his name because I’d made it famous!”
By the early 1950s, Bessie Stringfield ended her motorcycle treks across the United States and bought a house in the Opa-laka suburb of Miami, Florida. Her first job was as a private cook, for white families for years but then went to school to become a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in 1959.
During this time, Stringfield would join in flat track races disguised as a man. But was always denied the prize money when she took off her helmet and it was revealed she was a woman. Her other antics, including riding her Harley while standing in its saddle, which attracted local press attention. Reporters called Stringfield, the “Negro Motorcycle Queen” at first and then later the “Motorcycle Queen of Miami.” In the absence of children, she found joy in her pet dogs, some of whom paraded with her on her motorcycle.
Founder Iron Horse Motorcycle Club
She continued to ride locally and founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club and used her house a place for riders to hang out together.
Stringfield was 82 years old (1993) when she died from complications of an enlarged heart. People from the community congregated to honour her. In reflection, Bessie Stringfield would say that most of her years were spend alone, seeking a family. But that she had found her family in motorcycling.
When the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) opened the Heritage Museum in Pickerington, Ohio, Stringfield was featured in its exhibit on Women in Motorcycling.
Inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002, the AMA instituted the Bessie Stringfield Award to honour women who are leaders in motorcycling.
Despite the dangers Bessie Stringfield faced – the appalling racism, and the countless obstacles she encountered, she achieved great success and notoriety.
Bessie Stringfield lives in the hearts of every woman rider, every African American woman rider, and importantly, paved the way for other black women riders.
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