Her name may not be well known, but Bessie Stringfield’s prowess and bravado on a motorcycle are legendary. Stringfield taught herself to ride a motorcycle as a teen. She went on to become the first African American woman to travel across country solo on a motorcycle in the 1930s. WFAE’s Gwendolyn Glenn has more on North Carolina native Bessie Stringfield, mentioned in a current exhibition at the Gantt Center in uptown Charlotte.
Stringfield was born in 1911 in Edenton, near Elizabeth City. She lived there for about five years. It’s not clear whether her parents died or abandoned her when they left North Carolina for Massachusetts. But according to most accounts, she was adopted or taken in by an Irish Catholic woman in Boston. Her first motorcycle was a 1928 Indian Scout, which she taught herself to ride at the age of 16. Few women — Black or white — rode motorcycles at that time.
“Ain’t no job a man’s job if a woman want to do it,” Stringfield said in a short film on her life titled "To Myself, With Love: The Bessie Stringfield Story," when she was in her 80s. “Women drive trucks, so why not a motorcycle?”
Stringfield had a unique way of deciding where her next long-distance ride would take her.
“I’d open a map, and throw the penny up and where it landed, I’d go,” she said.
That was how Stringfield carved out her nomadic lifestyle for many years. Life on the road was tough, but Stringfield loved it. Many of the roads Stringfield traveled on solo in her early riding days were not paved. Diane Weis, who produced the film, says Stringfield’s bike’s suspension was not made for those rough roads.
“The Indian didn’t do as well as the people she saw riding Harley-Davidson,” Weis said. “If it rained and it was muddy, she would have a hard time starting the bike again. So she decided she would get a Harley. And she loved the bike so much she owned 27 of them during her lifetime.”
Stringfield had to deal with strict Jim Crow laws on her travels. The Green Book, which provided Black travelers information on safe and clean places to stay around the country during segregation, had not yet been published. So sleeping on her motorcycle, at times, was Stringfield’s only option.
“She faced a lot of challenges as a Black woman riding solo across the country during the Jim Crow era," Weis said. She had trouble finding lodging so she would have to sleep at — she called them — filling stations back then and if it rained she got wet. Sometimes she stayed in people’s homes.”
“She regularly encountered racism,” said Keith Cradle, one of the curators of an exhibition at the Harvey B. Gantt African American Arts and Culture Center, that focuses on Black motorcycle riders, including Stringfield, titled "Black Behind Bars."
“There was a report that she had been knocked over by a pickup truck while traveling through the South,” Cradle said. “When she was in Florida, she was called the ‘N’ word and told that Black folks shouldn’t be riding motorcycles. White people thought this was a predominantly white male space. And of course, (she was) being pulled over by police during that time.”
Those kinds of incidents did not stop Stringfield from riding in all 48 lower states and going cross-country eight times solo.
Joy Burgess, marketing director for the American Motorcycle Association, says Stringfield often told people that it was her faith in God that allowed her to ride without fear.
“She had faith in the man upstairs, that’s how she phrased it,” Burgess said. “This is an actual quote, she said: ‘If you had Black skin, you couldn't find a place to stay. But I knew the Lord would take care of me, and He did.’ A lot of what drove her was her faith, even in challenging times.”
To support herself, Stringfield often performed at carnivals, executing daredevil stunts for crowds, such as the barrel wall of death.
“In Norfolk, Virginia, I rode in the barrel around the wall on a motorcycle and I ain’t seen no other woman do that,” Stringfield said in the film. “And you gotta go pretty fast to stay up there,” she said with a laugh.
Women were not allowed in most of the competitions. Often, she disguised herself as a man. And there were instances where she was denied the prize money when her gender was discovered.
During World War II, Stringfield became a civilian motorcycle dispatcher for several years, delivering documents between domestic Army bases. She was the only woman in her segregated dispatch unit.
"Doing something for her country like that and actually having to prove that she had the skills to navigate on rough roads and do that type of a job was impressive,” Burgess said.
Stringfield moved to Miami in the 1950s. To pay the bills, she did some domestic work and performed on her bike while attending school to become a licensed practical nurse. In the 1960s, she founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club there. She was its only female member. And Black and white people referred to her as the Motorcycle Queen of Miami.
“To call someone the motorcycle queen — clearly, she was better than the rest,” Cradle said. “So, we see that that level of respect, you know, coming to her because of going through everything she went through and having the tenacity to stand tall, to stay in it. So, clearly, she was very good for people to want to get behind and say, ‘You know what, I'd love to ride with her.’”
Stringfield was a legend and her notoriety got the attention of the AMA, which in 1990 included Stringfield in an exhibition on female motorcyclists at the organization’s museum.
"Then about 10 years later, the AMA started giving away what they called the Bessie Stringfield Award, recognizing how amazing she was at breaking barriers — especially for women — and then giving an award to women and others in the industry who have led in motorcycling,” Burgess said.
In 2002, Stringfield was inducted into the American Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Former "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, a motorcycle enthusiast, was inducted that year as well. He talked about their induction in a podcast.
“She was certainly more deserving than I was,” Leno said. “I was just a guy on TV who liked motorcycles, whereas she actually did it. You know, she was a true pioneer. She braved all the things African Americans went through in the '30s. And, as a woman, I imagine it was probably twice as bad for her.”
More people are learning about Stringfield’s accomplishments through the short film, in a chapter on her in the book "Hear Me Roar" by motorcyclist and journalist Ann Ferrar, and the Dorktales Storytime Podcast.
“Today, we’re going to talk about a hidden hero of history. Her name was Bessie Stringfield and she was the happiest on two wheels,” said show host Jonathan Cormur in a recent episode.
People are also hearing about her through the Bessie Stringfield All-Female Ride, formed in 2014 by Black female motorcyclists. Tameka Singleton is the ride’s organizer.
“The first year I started the ride, that was my first cross-country. I left from Atlanta and went to California,” Singleton said. “It took three days.”
Glenn: And you ride a Harley?
Singleton: Yes, I do.
Glenn: Just like Bessie.
Singleton: Got to.
Glenn: You have a much more advanced motorcycle, and the roads are paved and you have access to hotels. Do you think you could have done what she did?
Singleton: No. I can’t fathom how she did it.
Singleton’s group started with six female bikers that first trip, to 50 riders the next year, and 300 in 2021 on the Eighth Annual Bessie Stringfield All Female Ride, the last ride to commemorate the number of times Stringfield rode her bike solo cross-country. Singleton formed a new group that year, Bessie Belles with women from various cities. She and three other members went with a group of 200 cyclists to imitate Bessie’s rides in a 13-day-trek last year from Key West, Florida, to Alaska on mainly secondary roads without GPS systems and hotels were not allowed.
“The hardest ride I've ever done,” Singleton said.
Glenn: Did you sleep on your motorcycle?
Singleton: I did.
Glenn: What was that like?
Singleton: Scary … VERY … We were Bessie.
Singleton says during their rides, they provide information on Stringfield and they sometimes do presentations on her at Harley-Davidson dealerships.
In September, the Bessie Belles and others will travel to Milwaukee for the opening of the first exhibition on Stringfield at the Harley Davidson Museum. The AMA’s Burgess hopes by highlighting Stringfield’s accomplishments other women will be inspired to ride and fulfill their dreams.
“She was strong and she was determined," Burgess said. “She just didn't let the world that she lived in define who she was. She defined who she was. And I think that's what resonates so much with women today who look back at Bessie. I didn't learn to ride a motorcycle til I was in my 30s. And looking at women like her, who did that despite the odds, inspires me.”
Stringfield never let anything get in the way of her riding, including husbands who didn’t want her on the road so much. She was married and divorced six times. She didn’t let health issues when she was in her early 80s stop her either. Stringfield continued to ride against her doctor’s orders. She died in 1993 at the age of 82 of a heart ailment. In April, a street in Miami Gardens, where she lived, was renamed Bessie Stringfield Way.
