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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, the production of iHeartRadio. Hey, brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in the United States today, only about

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Speaker 1: twenty percent of motorcycle owners are women, and even that's

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Speaker 1: a dramatic rise in ownership over the past decade or so.

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Speaker 1: But nearly a century ago, a black woman was paving

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Speaker 1: the way. If you'll forgive the pun for other women riders,

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Speaker 1: Bessie Stringfield in the nineteen thirties, a time when women

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Speaker 1: hadn't even had the right to vote for very long,

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Speaker 1: Stringfield toured the country riding solo and supported herself performing

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Speaker 1: stunts along the way. Not much as known about her

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Speaker 1: early childhood, as she was born in nineteen eleven in

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Speaker 1: the American southeast, perhaps North Carolina. She received her first

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Speaker 1: motorcycle from her mother at age sixteen, a nineteen twenty

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Speaker 1: eight Indian scout, though she didn't yet know how to

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Speaker 1: ride before the article. This episode is based on how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Work. Spoke with Anne Farrar, a journalist and the

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Speaker 1: author of springfields biography titled African American Queen of the Road.

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Speaker 1: Farar said quote, God taught her how to ride in

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Speaker 1: a dream. However, she learned it wouldn't have been easy.

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Speaker 1: A nineteen twenty eight scout probably weighed over seven hundred

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Speaker 1: pounds or three hundred kilos, and Stringfield was only about

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Speaker 1: five to five that's around one point six meters tall.

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Speaker 1: You have to be pretty fit to handle a bike

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Speaker 1: that big, especially when you don't have the leverage that

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Speaker 1: a little bit more height gives you. But in nineteen thirty,

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Speaker 1: at the age of nineteen, Stringfield took off on that

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Speaker 1: scout on her first solo tour, a ride without any

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Speaker 1: route or destination plan. She tossed a coin over a

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Speaker 1: map and rode to the location where it landed. And

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Speaker 1: she did this without the benefit of today's interstate highway

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Speaker 1: systems of neatly paved roads, and nor did she have

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Speaker 1: roadside service. If something broke down. She had to be

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Speaker 1: both rider and mechanic and contend with that heavy scout

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Speaker 1: on gravel and sand. At the time, it was very

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Speaker 1: rare for women to ride, and she was a black

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Speaker 1: woman transversing the Jim Crow South pre civil rights era.

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Speaker 1: Ferrar said that Stringfield faced discrimination along the way and

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Speaker 1: was turned away from motels and forced to sleep on

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Speaker 1: her bike instead. Neither easy nor comfortable She was threatened

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Speaker 1: on occasion, and one time was intentionally run off the

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Speaker 1: road by a white man in a pickup truck. Ferar

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Speaker 1: said the Bessie's superpower was her ability to not focus

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Speaker 1: on struggle, but rather in how she reacted to each

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Speaker 1: situation and each individual. Bessie was too modest to see

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Speaker 1: herself as particularly special. That first ride at age nineteen

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Speaker 1: was only the beginning of her two wheeled independence. Between

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties and her death in nineteen ninety three,

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Speaker 1: a Stringfield wound up riding solo across the United States

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Speaker 1: in eight separate trips, the first woman to ever do so.

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Speaker 1: She supported herself by performing motorcycle stunts at fairs, including

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Speaker 1: the Wall of Death, in which a large wooden cylinder

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Speaker 1: is constructed and while viewers watch from the top, motor

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Speaker 1: cyclists ride so fast that they climbed the vertical walls.

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Speaker 1: Stringfield also competed in flat track races, riding over oval

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Speaker 1: dirt tracks. One story recounts how she was denied prize

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Speaker 1: money after removing her helmet and revealing that she was

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Speaker 1: a woman. She even used her riding talents and service

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Speaker 1: to her country, a country that was still segregated as

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Speaker 1: a civilian courier in the early nineteen forties. During World

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Speaker 1: War Two, she carried mail and documents between bases for

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Speaker 1: the US Army. She was the only woman in an

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Speaker 1: all black unit. By the nineteen fifties, Stringfield settled in Miami,

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Speaker 1: where she became a licensed practical nurse and founded the

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Speaker 1: Iron Horse Motorcycle Club. She was known around town for

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Speaker 1: riding her bike to work in church, though, according to

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Speaker 1: a feature in the June nineteen ninety six issue of

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Speaker 1: American Motorcyclist magazine, she was initially given a hard time

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Speaker 1: by local police. She went to see the Captain, who

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Speaker 1: challenged her to a series of tricks and figure eights,

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Speaker 1: which she performed with ease. Stringfield got her license and

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Speaker 1: the her rassment stopped. She eventually became known as the

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Speaker 1: motorcycle Queen of Miami. During her six decades of riding,

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Speaker 1: Stringfield owned twenty seven Harley Davidson motorcycles and rode more

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Speaker 1: than a million miles, hitting all forty eight of the

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Speaker 1: continental United States, a plus one on motorcycle trips in Brazil, Europe,

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Speaker 1: and Haiti. While Stringfield may not appear to have had

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Speaker 1: a direct influence on the civil rights movement, she perhaps

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Speaker 1: unknowingly empowered those around her. Ferrar said Bessie made an

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Speaker 1: impression on people in her community, who were proud of

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Speaker 1: her and always pleased to see this independent black woman

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Speaker 1: on a Harley riding around town. A. Ferrara met Stringfield

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety at the American Motorcycle Association's Motorcycle Heritage Museum.

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Speaker 1: Stringfield was seventy nine years old and part of the

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Speaker 1: inaugural exhibit Women in Motorcycling, and Farrar was then a

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Speaker 1: newly minted biker. The two women became friends, and Stringfield

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Speaker 1: asked Ferrar to write her biography. Ferrar recorded numerous conversations

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Speaker 1: with Stringfield during her final three years so she could

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Speaker 1: help others recognize her achievements. In the year two thousand,

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Speaker 1: the American Motorcycle Association began giving the Bessie Stringfield Award

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Speaker 1: to women leaders in motorcycling, and in two thousand and two,

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Speaker 1: Bessie was inducted posthumously into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

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Speaker 1: The writer of the article that this episode is based on,

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Speaker 1: Sherise Cunningham, is a woman motorcyclist herself I don't ride.

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Speaker 1: The things in this episode about the physical difficulty of

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Speaker 1: writing are from her. I wanted to end this one.

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Speaker 1: Quoting Scherise on why she wrote this piece, she said

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Speaker 1: Stringfield was a rule breaker, an icon, an adventurer, a

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Speaker 1: free spirit who managed to live her life on her

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Speaker 1: own terms. I never gave much consideration to the fact

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Speaker 1: that had it not been for the bravery and boldness

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Speaker 1: of someone like Stringfield, I might not be able to

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Speaker 1: zip around relatively unscathed on America's highways as a woman.

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Speaker 1: Learning her story has made an indelible impression on me,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think I'll ever be able to sit

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Speaker 1: astride my Harley again without thinking of all she gave me.

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Speaker 1: Countless other women of any race who enjoy riding with

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Speaker 1: knees in the wind. Today's episode is based on the

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Speaker 1: article Hidden History on two Wheels, The Story of Bessie

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Speaker 1: Springfield on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Shrees Cunningham. Brainstuff

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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more

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