Citation Needed - Freedom House Ambulance Service & Bessie Coleman

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Freedom House Ambulance Service was the first emergency medical service in the United States to be staffed by paramedics with medical training beyond basic first aid.[1][2] Founded in 1967 to serve the predominantly Black Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it was staffed entirely by African Americans.[3][4] Freedom House Ambulance Service broke medical ground by training its personnel to previously unheard-of standards of emergency medical care for patients en route to hospitals.[3][5][6] The paramedic training and ambulance design standards pioneered in the Freedom House Ambulance Service would set the standard for emergency care nationally and even internationally.[2][5] Despite its successes, the ambulance service was closed eight years after it began operating.[5]   Elizabeth Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926)[2] was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and is the earliest known Black person to earn an international pilot's license.[10] She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921.[5][6][11]

Hello and welcome to citation needed. The podcast where we choose this subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet? And that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'll be the one behind the wheel tonight. But I'll need some folks to hang off the sides. First up, the wee and woo to my woo.

Noah and... What? I'm actually, I'm more of like a... We on. I see that? Nice. that you were on the fucking Ironman sleep schedule when I met you. I feel like you're my woo, if anything.

That's fair. That is fair. And also joining us tonight. A two-man emergency, if ever there was one, Tom and Cecil. Okay, being very fair to Cecil, I'm a one-man emergency. Cecil just bats a lot of cleanup. It's true. It's like an equal opportunity emergency every moment of his life.

It averages out. Yeah. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons, without you, we'd have a final. financial hole in our hearts that only showing our butts on only fans could fill. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Cecil, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event we'd be talking about today. Today we're talking about freedom house ambulance service.

And Tom, you found some folks with worse medical luck than yourself. Are you ready to break your neck like scorpion on the record to prove him wrong? Get over here, Eli. I remember that. So tell us, Tom, what was? It's a video game reference. I'm so proud of you. I think somebody wrote it for him.

Yeah. Yeah. So tell us, Tom, what was Freedom House ambulance service? We can't just jump right into it, Eli. That's crazy. I'm just teleporting all over the podcast. Like, Scorpy.

For a long time when Doomsday Prophets recalled Orwell's 1984, they did so in somewhat bad faith. Or was an air of absurdist hyperbole. exaggerating relatively small moments of government overreach in order to declare a dystopian slipper had begun at last to settle upon our feet. I'm not here to say I told you so, though yes I am and yes I did. I am, however, going to point out that any reading of 1984

will tell you that the most critical mission of any despotic authoritarian regime is to control, reshape, and retell the founding myths and histories that define a nation's people. A despot can only shape the future if they first control the stories we tell ourselves about our past, about who we are and how we arrived in this moment. As the Nepo baby elites tear plaques off the walls of the Smithsonian like Taliban soldiers dynamiting Buddhist statues, it feels not just necessary but imperative not to allow who we are as a nation to be homogenized, erased, and subsumed into a brutalist whiteout. The stories of who we are as a nation are ours to tell.

And if they get deleted from textbooks and museums, then perhaps some of them can live where they truly belong. Here on a comedy podcast run by five middle class white guys. We're the best allies, y'all. Really, savior, if you think about it. I have a mug. It says best ally on it. Also, Tom clearly watched the pit on HBO, I'm assuming, and that's why we're learning about this. That's how I learned about it recently.

Did you watch the pit? Yeah. I watched that. I was like, I had to write that down. I was like, yeah, this is a really cool story. Yeah, right, yeah, same, same. Today I'm going to tell you two very different stories, which have nothing more in common other than they seem like stories that might

disappear if we are not careful. Yeah, future dystopian ghost stories about this administration. It's like the Epstein snatcher and telling it with like a black sharpie under your chin, like a flashlight the whole time. Sorry, wait, I'm still dwelling on something. Are you guys middle class? Because gross. I listen to my kid.

You're from fucking Binghamton. relax over there. I was the richest man in Binghamton. There's no more like Binghamton bourgeoisie of Capitalist class. Every kingdom needs a king. How's fucking out of you. The Binghamton elite is what I was.

From Vestel, actually. It's even worse. Oh, dare you accuse me of being a vessel. Some things are too far. Seasel got that out of the pocket. No. Marsh is in the Epstein pilot. I'm going to shit myself.

during this press conference. Typical Vestal. All right, let's begin with the Freedom House ambulance service. Our story here begins in Pittsburgh, and as you might imagine, for my having said the word Pittsburgh, things were not good. In the 1960s and 70s, Pittsburgh was struggling financially. As in all the other decades, yeah. And since this is America, this meant that the black people of Pittsburgh were in especially dire need. In the Hill District, a predominantly black community, the majority of the residents were living well below the poverty line.

City officials were useless, claiming that residents of the Hill District were unemployable. Unsurprisingly, they were often denied access to welfare services and other social safety nets. Well, these people can't do paid labor. They're starving to death. That'll be no good. Now, it sounds bleak, and it was, but bleak is not the same as hopeless. In 1966, the U.S. government provided an economic stimulus grant, which is weird because a bunch of billionaires keep telling us that the key to ensuring the financial well-being of everyone is to slash corporate taxes and eliminate social programs so that the benevolent few can sprinkle economic mana from heaven upon the grateful-upon-a-turned faces of the filthy masses. But anyway, it's more of a flake down like Dandruff than a trickle-down if you think about it. It's like a Bukaki down is how it's true out. Anyway, that government grant helped to establish Freedom House Enterprises,

which was dedicated to creating job training and employment opportunities for the, quote, unemployables to get to work. So I feel like the name trickled down economics was like a compromise when all the mustache twirlers wanted to call it just pissing on poor people. And then they were tall, Tyler. No, we got to sell it better. They're going to pay $1,000 a plate to hear him say that one out loud. Yeah, right. In 1967, Freedom House Enterprises, under the supervision of Dr. Nancy Caroline and Dr. Peter Safar, started an ambulance service, which was rather a big deal.

Up until now, there really wasn't such a thing as a community-run ambulance service and certainly not one with trained paramedics. This is partly because the very idea of a paramedic had just now been invented. And because up until now, ambulance services were a scattershot patchwork of fours, or higher services and catches catch-can non-medical human-to-hospital delivery services. It was like Uber for a while. In many communities, police would load the sick or injured in paddy wagons for transport. And in others, and this feels like a conflict of interest, at least, funeral homes provided emergency transport services.

Come on. Horizontal integration. That's cool. in either case, trained professional medical care was not part of the program. Here in the hearse is like, oh no, another stop right. And a flat. Oh, no. Did you guys hear a siren from like, I don't know, an ambulance?

We better pull over. We're going to pull over. We're going to let them pass wherever they are. To doctors, Caroline and Safar quickly gathered their first class of trainees. and in short order they created the first paramedic training program, followed by the very first paramedics to staff their community ambulance service. A class of men and women sailed through the training were ready to begin saving some motherfucking lives.

But there were, of course, some problems. Chief among them was the fact that many white people were so racist that they were reluctant to use an ambulance service run by black paramedics. Even though, and I cannot emphasize this enough, there was literally no medical alternative. Wow. I feel like if you're one of these black EMTs, you're going to like try to make the racist shoot themselves in the face, right?

You're just riding up to the house. Guys, it's got five Confederate flags outside. We're going to like black it up, right? Someone put in the heat of the night on a little TV and carry it in. But just as people suddenly become forgetful of a pilot. its skin color when flying through heavy turbulence, or at the end of long arms fire, too. That is

another way to forget it. Plenty of sick and injured people with varying amounts of melanin were more than happy to call Freedom House ambulance services when they actually needed real help. Freedom House served the Hill District as well as the greater Pittsburgh area until 1975 when the city figured out that, you know,

perhaps this whole paramedic and municipal ambulance thing was a pretty good idea. And they began their own city-funded program. Now, you might think that the city, having literally gotten the very idea of paramedic-run ambulance services from Freedom House, would just hire the folks who had invented and run this program for years. Well, unless you've heard of America, but yeah. Yes, unless exactly. But, of course, that did not happen.

And many of the dedicated experience paramedics, America's first medical first responders, were sidelined, which is total bullshit. but doesn't in any way change the fact that when Noah has a heart attack and calls 911, a bus staff to train medical heroes shows up because black people invented that shit. All right. Well, I've been reminded that I need to make sure that none of my local paramedic zip line. And while I do, we'll take a quick break for some apropos of nothing. Emergency services, sir. Are you okay?

We're here to help. Oh, um, sorry, you guys, the new ambious. thing everyone's talking about. That's right, sir, yes. You know what? I'm actually fine. You're fine? Yep.

I was just having to lie down. Honestly, kind of rude of you guys to break into my house. I mean, I suppose it comes naturally to you. Oh, okay, sir. I get it. You don't want our help because we're black. What? No, I never said, oh my God,

everything is about racism with you people. That's the thing. Fine. You were just napping. Yep, little naparoo right here on the floor And this big puddle of blood Right next to you No, that's not blood, that's soup

I was having some floor soup before my nap Floor soup Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, Might have a spoon full right now Cool Got it, sir, I'm just, I'm getting a spoon I'm getting a spoon.

Sir, please don't do this. I got it, no, now I'm just gonna Oh, oh, yum, Yep. Good soup. I will. I'm going to throw it. You know what?

We're going to go. Hey, real quick, before you go? Yes, sir. If you know a white ambulance, will you tell them I fell down and then ate my own blood? Yeah, you got it, sir. We'll tell them. Thanks. Don't steal stuff while you leave.

Dude. What I'm just saying? Hey, Pat guess listener. If you've been listening to our shows a while, you know that we're proud to be sponsored by ExpressVPN. And as the tombs of the world have had their way more and more, States have had to shut down their access to internet pornography. They are not the Tom's of the world. Yes, they are.

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God damn. And we're back. When we left off, Tom was surprised that black people invented something. Yikes. Tom, wow.

I actually always assume that a person of color has invented something and then I'm surprised when a white person does it. Jesus Christ. That's racist to you. I don't know.

I quit the show. Last year, I did an episode of this very show about Amelia Earhart, who, if you'll recall, had a bunch of sex with my great grandma. I have. Flew around with it.

She flew around with a uterus. She got lost somewhere in the sky, crashed, and was maybe eaten by enormous and terrifying land crabs. I chose that story in part because I already knew some of the bare bones of the story. So do the crabs. That she gave my great grandma. And we've all probably heard of Earhart. Until today, however, I had never heard of Bessie Coleman.

Don't believe him, listener. He wrote this several days ago. who in 1921 became the first black and Native American woman to earn her pilot's license. A feat she managed to achieve two years before Earhart, who was probably too busy fucking he's great-grandmother to notice. Wow. Two shots at Charlie Kirk in this episode when it really just takes one. Two shots of penicillin for the crabs. Yeah. So my great-grandma, she was a powerful woman.

like stern, like sexually powerful, I would imagine. That is not a thing. Maybe it should be in your imagination. Because it's really cool. It's important. I'm back on your side for this part of the joke. Thank you. I don't know if that's good.

If Eli joins your side like Bray holding a grenade while you're doing a joke, I don't know if that's good. I think it's bad for everybody because there's a grenade. Bessie Coleman was born in 1892 to 5. George Coleman, who is black as well as Cherokee or possibly Chalkta, and Susan Coleman, a black woman who had 13 total children, and very likely, no more goddamn patience. Bessie began her education when she was six years old, walking four miles to a segregated one-room

schoolhouse where she excelled as a student, and by 12, she was accepted under scholarship to the missionary Baptist Church School, where she also excelled. At 18, Coleman enrolled in the Oklahoma, colored agricultural and normal universe. in Langston, Oklahoma, but after one term, she ran out of money and was forced to return home. Yeah, I got a ticket in college and it turned me into a 9-11 truther, so I also know hardship. Like, I get it. I'm a hundred percent. All right.

So I'm the only one who feels like the and normal is a pretty public gig at the ag department. It's like, we teach agriculture, but also normal shit, like normal university stuff, right? You could come here. In case you're not a farming pervert. At 23, Bessie and her brothers left Oklahoma for Chicago. working as a manicurist at a barbershop and it was there that she first began to hear stories from soldiers returning from

World War I of wartime, aviation exploits and daring do and Bessie became certain that she had to find a way to get up in the air herself. She took a second job as a restaurant manager at something Wiki refers to as a chili parlor. And now I'm

upset that these are not a thing anymore, although if they were a Cincinnati would just fucking ruin them. Two stray dogs eating out back of a Cincinnati chili parlor. They slurp a spaghetti noodle and kiss and then they throw up right afterwards. All over the skyline

chili, no way changes the flavor. There was just one problem with Bessie's plan to save money for flight school. It was 1915. And American flight schools did not enroll women or black people

or Native Americans. That's actually three problems, but really, it's the same problem. Now, somehow in the wiki does nothing to explain this, Bessie, the chili parlor manager and manicurist, gets the attention to the founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, who encourages her to go to flight school abroad. Now, this seemed like a great idea, but again, money was a real thing. And so Abbott published Coleman's quest to get to flight school in the defender, and soon after, Bessie was bankrolled by a benefactor. Yeah, we bankroll people today, but they're just anti-trans swimmers. That's the only one of you know.

Yeah. Riley Gaines is backed by big forehead. Most people know that. Al Bessie was headed to France, but first, she needed to learn French. So she took language classes at Berlitz language schools in Chicago until she was fluent in French. And I just want to pause here and say that I will not watch YouTube videos if they're too long,

much less learn a whole ass language as a prerequisite to learning something else. Well, but I'm American. I won't even learn another language as a just requisite to learning that language. All right, anyway, Bessie pops over to post-war France

and learns to fly in a biplane with, quote, a steering system that consisted of a vertical stick, the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot, and a rudder bar under the pilot's feet.

Okay, so you know when you're like, all right, should I get like the pixel 10 or wait and see how the pixel 11 does. Early airplanes are one of those inventions where I'm going to hold off and see how Gen 2 is looking. Like right now it's like the nanobots that clean your organs to get rid of plaque or whatever. We're like, you know, the dog with the flamethrower. I just want to see how this plays out before

I get into it. Now, by 1921, Bessie Coleman had become both the first black woman and the first Native American to earn an aviation pilots license, despite there being no way to do that in her home country. Abessi then sought lessons from a French ace pilot, which if you heard my essay on World War I flying aces, that's a guy who had racked up at least five confirmed kills while flying an airplane made from like burlap sacks, three reimagined box kite frames and an engine taken from an old lawnmower, all armed with a bolt action hunting rifle. Well, yeah, it was dangerous, but I mean, people who were shooting out were also in lawnmower power box kites too. So it was easy. Easier.

And by the way, the hunting rifle is not the exaggeration in that comparison. That's actually what they were armed with initially. The Coleman took to the sky just as she did to everything else. She tried and she quickly excelled and returned home to the states in a flurry of excited media attention. I realize that burlap sacks three reimagined box kite frames and an engine taken from an old lawnmower as well as a bolt action hunting rifle seems like a somewhat haphazard collection of things. But you can get that in just one Jim Baker bucket. All it takes. That's all it takes.

And it's a chair. And a toilet. What? There was little commercial aviation work to be had for, well, anyone at this time. And there was less than none for a black Native American woman pilot. Less than none. That's right. Black Native American women pilots had to unfly.

Bessie realized that to make her living flying, she was going to quite literally need to put on a show. exhibition flying known as barnstorming was a possibility, but that was going to take specialized training. And no one in Chicago was up to the task. So it was back to France for Bessie, where she completed more advanced flight training. And while she was already an excellent pilot, she knew she needed still more tricks up her sleeve in order to succeed. Bessie traveled from France to the Netherlands and to Germany, receiving ever more advanced training from foremost experts in aviation and other snowblowers. engine aircraft technologies. Now when Bessie returned to the States, she was in high demand, and this is direct from Wiki, quote, by both blacks and whites, which feels yikes to me.

Maybe they need an ambulance. Jesus Christ. Spoiler. She primarily flew war surplus airplanes and was known as Queen Bess, billed by the Chicago defender as the world's greatest female flyer, because I guess they didn't want to qualify her achievements because of her blackness, but she was still a woman, and we shouldn't forget that. In an aviation show in Chicago, Queen Best thrilled audiences with aerial figure eights, loops, and near-ground dips, all of which she pulled off without even one penis,

and while being black, the entire flight. Yeah, okay, so if she takes a racist guy for a ride in her plane, I feel like white face is justified there. You know, like she wipes it off, and she's like, hey, you cool if I keep piloting, the motherfucker? You sure you don't want to sit up front? Now you guys always want to sit up front. You like, guys. A Coleman had a reputation as a daring and fearless flyer who would stop at nothing to complete a difficult stunt. In 1922, her airplane engine realized that it was a wildly optimistic repurposing of an old motorcycle engine and it stalled out, pausing her to crash, breaking her leg and fracturing several ribs.

Despite her injuries, Bessie asked doctors to... patch her up so she could make her next exhibition flight. But it was 1922 and doctors had just finished debating which of the humors paired best with red wine and leeches. So Coleman was not patched up in time for her next event and she was grounded for several months while she recovered. Bessie was grounded, but she was not sideline. Bessie was keenly aware of her role in impact as a black aviator and began a tour speaking to audiences about her pursuit of aviation, but also about the experience of pursuing your goals and dreams as a black person in America. In one particularly memorable speech, Bessie laid out her sense of responsibility.

Quote, the air is the only place free from prejudices. I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the race needed to be represented along this most important line, so I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation. She also refused to fly or participate in events that refused entry for black audiences, forcing some venues to change their attendance policies in order to secure a contract with the famous aviator. So committed to being a role model for her race, Coleman walked away from a potential film career. Having some contacts in the media, Bessie was offered a role in a future-length film called Shadow and Sunshine.

And at first, Coleman was excited. However, when she learned that the opening scene would depict her character in Tampi, her to close, the walking stick, and a pack on her back, she backed out of the project. Quote, clearly Bessie's walking off the movie set was a statement of principle. Opportunist, though, she was about her career. She was never an opportunist about race. She had no intention of perpetuating the derogatory image most whites had of blacks. Okay, I wasn't aware of that particular racism, but I think Kill Tony should bring back

Black people love walking sticks. I think that's, now's the time. I think Kill Tony. What Bessie really wanted next was secure enough money to buy her own plane and open a flying school. A school that would welcome all students who wanted to learn to fly regardless of how uncomfortable that made people. But airplanes cost money. And Coleman was going to need help. Luckily, she met community activist Reverend Hill and his wife Viola while on a speaking tour in Orlando, Florida.

And the pair offered to let Bessie live with her. and help her open a beauty shop to earn extra money. And by 1926, she had saved enough to buy her own plane. Marking the last known historical instance of meeting a person in Florida ending well. I'm aware of. A Bessie Coleman bought a Curtis JN4, which this is the plane you think of when you think of a World War I-era two-seater biplane. It had a maximum operating ceiling of about 6,000 feet

and a top speed of 80 miles an hour. For its time, this plane was an icon. And it was also in Dallas. And Coleman was at this time in Jacksonville, Florida. So she asked her publicity agent and fellow pilot William Willis to fly it to her in Jacks. On the way to Florida, the plane broke down three times due to mechanical issues.

Understandably, Coleman's friends and family warned Bessie not to leave the bounds of earthly gravity to soar among the clouds in a machine only slightly more reliable than a Jeep Grand Cherokee. But Bessie would not be swayed. This was her plane and her dream. Yeah, no, no, maybe I should hold out

for a safer flying lawnmower, guys. This is good. No, absolutely not. This is what I'm using. On April the 30th, 1926, William Willis, and Bessie Coleman took to the air with Willis in the pilot's seat and Coleman in the seat behind Willis.

Aviation nerd moment in the Curtis J.N. Ford, the pilot sat behind the past. passenger. Oh, sorry. Sorry to be so stereotypically me, Tom. Please continue. No, that's fine. That's fine. I wish the wiki had given me some indication at all of that. It's like a Rose of Park scenario. Bessie was unharnessed because she was planning a

parachute jump the next day and she needed to be able to see over the side to look for a suitable landing spot. 10 minutes into the flight, the plane unexpectedly first began to dive, then to spin, while 3,000 feet above the earth, hurling Coleman from the plane. Willis had no time to regain control the plane and the inexorable pole of gravity sucked the doom airplane to the ground where it exploded. Willis and Coleman were both killed on impact.

Oh, holy shit, Tom. This is the story you think needs to stay in the next. Well, maybe not the end. And then Rosa Parks, she stepped right off from the front seat. She got smashed by another bus right away. America austerity. Jesus Christ. The fact that she died right after my pedantic correction, we sound like more of an asshole, Tom. Damn. All right, but Coleman

had made an impact, not only with the ground. Jesus Christ, Tom. But with America. Oh, yeah? You saved it, buddy. Good. Many well-known aviators and astronauts whose names I don't recognize,

but that have their own Wikipedia pages, have cited Bessie Coleman as an inspiration. What not to do? She inspired me always wear my seatbelt. That damn. She's immortalized in museum. She has a library named after her in Chicago.

There are roads named after her at several of America's largest airports. She has her own stamp. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame as well as the National Aviators Hall of Fame. She has her own Barbie doll. And still, I had never heard of her. But now you have and you can pretend you always did.

All that from one episode of the pit. That's amazing, Tom. A weird correction. And another thing about black people? Oh my God. While I put in your IV? All right, Tom. If you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence,

what would it be? It should be more embarrassing that I didn't already know these two stories, but I went to public school, so really we're all to blame. Right? Great, great. It's chill and cool. I am ready for the quiz.

And are you ready for the quiz? I am ready for the quiz. Yes. I'm glad you asked. Tom. Barnstorming in Europe requires creativity with famous sites.

What was the most difficult landmark barn she practiced on? Oh boy. B. Feroysilo. B. Flownhenge.

Or C. Bumpercropolis. Bumper Cropolis. I'm a sucker for a good Cropolis. There you go. A C bumper Cropos. A gentlemanly question. A gentlemanly

Pursiloh. It's fucking perfect. So, Tom, what did I learn about feeling with racism in this country? Clearly not interesting. A, white people might stop being racist when the other option is death. They might sometimes. B, that means DEI has not gone far enough. C, we need an aggressive diversity, inclusion, and equity plan.

Oh, there you go. Or D.I.E. Or D. we should create universal health care with a team of exclusively non-white medical personnel. Either it works or it works even better

if you think of that. Write that legislation. I'm writing like Congress people. Well done. All right, Tom. Today you told us that it's very important. Remember the first lady Native American black pilot

who exploded right before our dreams came true. Who's your next essay going to be about? Is it A? first Chinese man to almost sail around the world before he got eaten by sharks. B, the first, first nation thruple to die pretty close

to the top of Mount Everest. Or C, my acting. Well, it's not C because it wouldn't fill our word count. So I think... I think it's a Chinese guy.

You put the whole script of Fiddler on the roof in there. Whole page is just pigeons. It's like the whole thing. All right, I got one for you here, Tom. Pager 3 through 5 ask if this is your card. All right, so I go one for you, Tom. This is our guy seems okay. What is the most racist airplane?

Oh, boy. A, the white flyer. B, the bell curve X1. C, the Enola straight. That is fucking genius, dude. It's so good. Perfect. It's so good. See the Grumman F-14 words, Tom Katz.

Oh, my God. Or E. Air Force 1. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Well, I mean, it's actually E. Oh, I'm sorry. Actually, a whole bunch of airplanes. They become the most racist airplane when he gets on. Sorry, it was secret answer F, the spirit of St. Louis. But I can see why you thought that. All right. Noah, you are this week's

awesome, because I want a Heath essay next week. All right, well, for Noah, Heath, Tom, and Cecil. I'm Elabosnik. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by then, Heath will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to our other podcasts in all the podcast places. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per-up episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod. Or leave us a five-star review everywhere you can. And if you like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes.

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