Bessie Springfield
Pioneering Motorcyclist
A new documentary on the pioneering Black Catholic motorcyclist Bessie Stringfield (1911-1993) recently premiered in Palm Springs, California, part of the AmDoc Festival, Black Catholic Messenger reported.
“To Myself, With Love: The Bessie Springfield Story,” is 23-minute short.
“In 1930, Jim Crow laws of racial segregation and discrimination made it exceedingly difficult and dangerous for African Americans to travel around the United States. But a courageous young Black woman with a yearning for adventure, took off from Boston on a motorcycle and rode across the turbulent country alone; not just once, but eight times. This daring woman was Bessie Stringfield, who made her first treacherous cross-country trip at the age of 19 and later embarked on a colorful and barrier-busting career as a carnival stunt rider, WW2 Army dispatcher, and motorcycle club founder,” reads a press release.
The Messenger reported consultants on the film were stakeholders from the Bessie Stringfield All-Female Ride, inaugurated in her honor in 2014 in Florida. There, Stringfield spent the last several decades of her life, continuing to ride well into her eighties—including to Mass on Sundays—and was dubbed the “Motorcycle Queen of Miami.”
You can read more about the documentary here.
I would love to see the film.