Choose 3 facts from the text that lead readers toward identifying the central idea Along with racism, Coleman encountered the burden of sexism, but she made believers out of those who doubted her skill. "The color of my skin," she said, "Iwas) a drawback at first. ...I was a curiosity, but soon the public discovered I could really fly. Then they came to see Brave Bessie, as they called me." The strict rules and regulations that govern aviation today didn't exist during the first three decades of flying For example, it wasn't uncommon for aviators to ignore safety belts and fly without parachutes. One of these simple safety precautions might have saved the lives of both Harriet Quimby and Bessie Coleman.17 On a July morning in 1912, Quimby, and a passenger named William P. Willard, set out to break an over-water speed record. When Quimby climbed to five thousand feet, the French-made Blériot monoplane suddenly nosed down. Both Quimby and Willard were thrown from the plane and plunged to their deaths in the Boston Harbor. The New York Sun used the opportunity to speak out against women fliers: Miss Quimby is the fifth woman in the world killed while operating an aeroplane (three were students) and their number thus far is five too many. The sport is not one for which women are physically qualified. As a rule they lack strength and presence of mind and the courage to excel as aviators. It is essentially a man's sport and pastime. 10 Fourteen years later, Bessie Coleman died in a similar accident. With almost enough savings to start her school. Coleman agreed to do an air show in Florida on May Day for the Negro Welfare League of Jacksonville. At 7:30 PM. the night. before, Coleman, accompanied by her publicity agent, William Wills, took her plane up for a test flight. When she reached an altitude of about five thousand feet, her plane flipped over. Coleman was thrown from the plane and plunged to her death April 30, 1926. Wills died seconds later when the plane crashed. 20 Once again critics used the tragedy to assert that neither women nor blacks were mentally or physically able to be good pilots. "Women are often penalized by publicity for their every mishap," said Amelia Earhart, the most famous female pilot in aviation history. The result is that such emphasis sometimes directly affects (a woman's] chances for a flying job, Earhart continued "I had one manufacturer tell me that he couldn't risk. hiring women pilots because of the way accidents, even minor ones, became headlines in the newspapers..