Who was the first black person (in the world) to go airborne in an aircraft? Who was the first black person in the world to go airborne in an aircraft?

Surprisingly, google fails me in this so I don't think it falls under the closeable category of trivial trivia.

(I do not use the term "African American" because the answer might not be an American. I don't use "African" either because there are white Arab Africans. I suppose Sub-saharan African? But then there are black Africans on the north coast of Africa too. So I don't know what the term is that's both accurate and politically correct.)

Closest I've found so far:


Bessie Coleman was the first black woman to hold a civil pilot license, but I could not find a date for her very first airborne event, either as a passenger or pilot.
Eugene Bullard was one of the first black pilots, as was Ahmet Ali Çelikten and Emory C. Malick according to wikipedia. I could not find dates for their very first airborne events either.


My question is about any such person to be airborne in an aircraft. Obviously this could be a passenger, not a pilot. Edit: and it could be an employee too. I don't know how the personnel was organized back then, but maybe some cargo handler went along with some flights.

BTW the definition I'm using for "aircraft" is any heavier-than-air thing flies via lift. So no hot-air balloons and no dirigibles. But rotary-aircraft and gliders are okay. I think they had experimental ones very early in aviation history.
The earliest example I could find is Emory Malick, a African American Aviator who received his pilots license in 1912 but stopped flying after a series of crashes. For the first pilot with a major career, every source I could find points to Eugene Bullard, an American who studied in France and fought in WWI, receiving his license in 1917.

Specific searches to look for British, German, or Italian pilots of African descent came up with nothing from that time period, so I think it's fairly safe to say that these two were the first.

Outside of the US, Ahmet Ali Çelikten flew for the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1914, and is widely regarded as the second black pilot following Malick.

As for passengers, I doubt you'll find much unless logs from the time included race on tickets for aviation.