September 23, 2022 • 9 mins
Tracy and Holly talk about hunting for sources for Eugene Jacques Bullard's story, and his unpublished memoir. They also talk about wanting to return to Paris knowing Bullard's story.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you missed in history class, a production
of I heart radio. Hello and happy Friday. I'm Tracy
P Wilson and I'm holly FRY. We spent all week
talking about Eugene Jacques Bullard. I mean that's a pretty
(00:21):
dreamy way to spend a week. It really was. I
mean I when people started asking us to do this episode,
which it might have been before the earliest ones that
are still in the inboxer from it really was like
here's a viral facebook post about this black fighter pilot
from World War One, and at first I was really like,
(00:44):
that post you gave me is all the information that
I'm seeing. So it sounds cool, but I don't know
how that would work. Um. And at that point the
like the book that I referenced. It was specifically, uh,
focused mostly on like his jazz age Paris life. That
(01:04):
book already existed. It just wasn't coming up in the
places that I was searching for it, and there is.
There's just way more information available about him now. I
don't know if his unpublished memoir would ever be published.
All I have read of it are passages that were
(01:25):
quoted in other things about him from people who, you know,
went to the archive where there's a copy of it
and read it for themselves while working on a biography.
But I kind of wonder what other bits in there
besides his relationship with his wife, might be a little, uh,
not in alignment with what can be verified, which is
(01:47):
this is not a reflection like this. That happens with
memoirs almost across the board, like anytime you're reading somebody's memoir,
there's probably stuff in it that is either they remember
it differently from how it really happened or they're kind
of putting the best light they can on something, or
(02:08):
maybe the worst light they can on something like this.
Is Not unique to his memoir at all, but man,
I'm curious about it. I think, I mean I I
have a history crush on him. It's like everything you
want in a person. He's interesting, he's resilient, he speaks
of Kajillion languages, so he's clearly smart and interesting. Um,
(02:30):
he punches racists and Nazis like this is this is
the total package. Punching racist was a big part of
his I didn't write about this in the episode at
all just because it's totally speculative on my part. We've
talked so many times on the show about the social
expectations placed on black people and the measures that black
(02:55):
people have had to take to try to keep themselves safe. Um.
And like that came up in our episode on Mamie
till Mobley and the murder of Emmett till and like
how she had talked to him about how to behave
around white people with the hope that he would be safe.
So I wonder, or imagine that, like his leaving the
(03:17):
United States for Europe when he did, when he was
still relatively young. I mean he was into his teens,
but he was not even he was not an adult yet. Um,
how that influenced his willingness to just fight back violently
all the time, because he uh, he had a passage
(03:38):
that he sort of related a thing that his father
had had told them in this conversation that his father
had that was like, if something happens to me, I
want you to be good, Um. And it was something
along the lines of don't back down from a fight,
but don't go looking for one either. Um. And that
seems to have been something that he deeply into. Ternalized
(04:00):
your bodied. Yeah, yeah, yes, Um, I bet you like me.
Would like to use our imaginary time machine to go
back in time and maybe listen. I'm not a fan
of violence, but slap around Dr Edmund Gross a little. Yeah,
like that at least, like feed him a Sneezer, like
give him, you know, food. I spit him. I don't. Don't.
Don't spit in people's food. Just that man is deplorable.
(04:23):
What a meme, natured snake of a weasel. I'm gonna
combine all kinds of common there. There were other people
in addition to him that we did not get into
you at all, who were also part of handling the
idea of white American troops and their proximity to black
(04:45):
people in France in World War One and, like a
lot of people, really concerned about how people were gonna
Act if suddenly they were deployed next to a black battalion.
And Oh, it was nauseating to read a lot of it. So, yeah,
that's uh, a lot of the things that I read
(05:07):
that were about gross and what gross did and that
gross is. I'm assuming that's how he pronounced its name.
It was spelled G R O S and I I'm
guessing it was pronounced like Gross, which makes it kind
of a suitable name for somebody who just took such
pains accuracy. But I kept finding people being like yeah,
it's it's not totally confirmed that he was the person
(05:31):
who did this, but it does seem like he was
the person who did this, and I'm like, are you
just trying to cushion that possibility or what? Because there
were just so many things that bullard was denied or
kept out of or whatever, and that guy just kept
showing up over and over M it's like every time
(05:55):
we would I had read through it, but then every
time we would get to his name or I would
see it coming up as we were recording, it's like
I had a fresh, like visceral yuck response, like you know,
and it stinks that he kept recurring in Jean's life,
like I have moved on to other things. Oh, here
(06:17):
he is again, here he is again to maybe start
another ambulance corps, which I mean was an important thing
to do, but still, uh. This episode also made me
wish somehow I had a time machine so that I
could have researched it before we took our trip to
Paris back in twenty nine. Team was that when we
did that Um, because we spent a lot of time
(06:40):
walking around Mamarch. He did indeed, and that, you know,
might have been nice to do with that additional bit
of context. I mean, the good news is Mal Matra
is still there. We can still at some point and
do it all over again, look for at least the
space is where where he could have been, even though,
(07:03):
like his building burned down and went not so yeah, yeah,
I mean, any excuse to go to Paris. Yeah, let's
do it. Yeah, as soon as I got to the
part where the minute he got to Paris, he was like,
this is where I want to be, I was like,
he and holly are kindred spirits. I was just like, yes,
this is the history person of my dreams. Yeah, yeah,
(07:25):
I would love to hang with him. Are you kidding?
Like the fact that he is Um, he was such
a chameleon in terms of like being able to turn
his efforts to so many different vocations and do pretty
well in all of them. Like I like that he
became a jazz drummer, and not only was he like, Oh, yeah,
I can get booked because people need a drummer so bad,
but Zelli is also like I also need you to
(07:47):
like run this business for me and he's like Oh, okay, yeah,
he was. He was also characterized as like good, but
not great at most of the things that he tried.
So he was like a good pilot but not a
great one, and a good drummer but not a great one.
I was like you keep saying that, just just like
I've the number of things that he tried to do professionally.
(08:10):
I don't think it's reasonable to expect that he would
have been great at all of them. I love a
Jack of all trade story. I love it. He's a
renaissance man. Yeah, I think probably of all the things
that he tried, the thing he was probably the best
at was like running that nightclub like that. Like that,
that aspect of it seems to be where he had
the most standout success, versus being a boxer or a
(08:34):
combat pilot or whatever, where it was more like he
was he was pretty good, and a spy, and a spy,
holy Moses, what a life like? That's the kind of
life that, if it were fiction, you'd be like this
is kind of a lot. You could let's edit out
part one of these jobs please. So, yeah, you cain
(08:59):
pull he's great. I really enjoyed doing this episode. Once again,
happy Friday. Whatever is coming up for your weekend, I
hope it's great. If it's not great, I hope there's
at least like a moment of rest and peace for you.
We'll have a brand new episode on Monday, Saturday, classic tomorrow,
(09:20):
which is Saturday, and you can subscribe to our show
on the I heart radio APP, wherever else you like
to get podcasts. Stuff you missed in history class is
a production of I heart radio. For more podcasts from
I heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple
podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to stuff you missed in history class, a production
of I heart radio. Hello and happy Friday. I'm Tracy
P Wilson and I'm holly FRY. We spent all week
talking about Eugene Jacques Bullard. I mean that's a pretty
(00:21):
dreamy way to spend a week. It really was. I
mean I when people started asking us to do this episode,
which it might have been before the earliest ones that
are still in the inboxer from it really was like
here's a viral facebook post about this black fighter pilot
from World War One, and at first I was really like,
(00:44):
that post you gave me is all the information that
I'm seeing. So it sounds cool, but I don't know
how that would work. Um. And at that point the
like the book that I referenced. It was specifically, uh,
focused mostly on like his jazz age Paris life. That
(01:04):
book already existed. It just wasn't coming up in the
places that I was searching for it, and there is.
There's just way more information available about him now. I
don't know if his unpublished memoir would ever be published.
All I have read of it are passages that were
(01:25):
quoted in other things about him from people who, you know,
went to the archive where there's a copy of it
and read it for themselves while working on a biography.
But I kind of wonder what other bits in there
besides his relationship with his wife, might be a little, uh,
not in alignment with what can be verified, which is
(01:47):
this is not a reflection like this. That happens with
memoirs almost across the board, like anytime you're reading somebody's memoir,
there's probably stuff in it that is either they remember
it differently from how it really happened or they're kind
of putting the best light they can on something, or
(02:08):
maybe the worst light they can on something like this.
Is Not unique to his memoir at all, but man,
I'm curious about it. I think, I mean I I
have a history crush on him. It's like everything you
want in a person. He's interesting, he's resilient, he speaks
of Kajillion languages, so he's clearly smart and interesting. Um,
(02:30):
he punches racists and Nazis like this is this is
the total package. Punching racist was a big part of
his I didn't write about this in the episode at
all just because it's totally speculative on my part. We've
talked so many times on the show about the social
expectations placed on black people and the measures that black
(02:55):
people have had to take to try to keep themselves safe. Um.
And like that came up in our episode on Mamie
till Mobley and the murder of Emmett till and like
how she had talked to him about how to behave
around white people with the hope that he would be safe.
So I wonder, or imagine that, like his leaving the
(03:17):
United States for Europe when he did, when he was
still relatively young. I mean he was into his teens,
but he was not even he was not an adult yet. Um,
how that influenced his willingness to just fight back violently
all the time, because he uh, he had a passage
(03:38):
that he sort of related a thing that his father
had had told them in this conversation that his father
had that was like, if something happens to me, I
want you to be good, Um. And it was something
along the lines of don't back down from a fight,
but don't go looking for one either. Um. And that
seems to have been something that he deeply into. Ternalized
(04:00):
your bodied. Yeah, yeah, yes, Um, I bet you like me.
Would like to use our imaginary time machine to go
back in time and maybe listen. I'm not a fan
of violence, but slap around Dr Edmund Gross a little. Yeah,
like that at least, like feed him a Sneezer, like
give him, you know, food. I spit him. I don't. Don't.
Don't spit in people's food. Just that man is deplorable.
(04:23):
What a meme, natured snake of a weasel. I'm gonna
combine all kinds of common there. There were other people
in addition to him that we did not get into
you at all, who were also part of handling the
idea of white American troops and their proximity to black
(04:45):
people in France in World War One and, like a
lot of people, really concerned about how people were gonna
Act if suddenly they were deployed next to a black battalion.
And Oh, it was nauseating to read a lot of it. So, yeah,
that's uh, a lot of the things that I read
(05:07):
that were about gross and what gross did and that
gross is. I'm assuming that's how he pronounced its name.
It was spelled G R O S and I I'm
guessing it was pronounced like Gross, which makes it kind
of a suitable name for somebody who just took such
pains accuracy. But I kept finding people being like yeah,
it's it's not totally confirmed that he was the person
(05:31):
who did this, but it does seem like he was
the person who did this, and I'm like, are you
just trying to cushion that possibility or what? Because there
were just so many things that bullard was denied or
kept out of or whatever, and that guy just kept
showing up over and over M it's like every time
(05:55):
we would I had read through it, but then every
time we would get to his name or I would
see it coming up as we were recording, it's like
I had a fresh, like visceral yuck response, like you know,
and it stinks that he kept recurring in Jean's life,
like I have moved on to other things. Oh, here
(06:17):
he is again, here he is again to maybe start
another ambulance corps, which I mean was an important thing
to do, but still, uh. This episode also made me
wish somehow I had a time machine so that I
could have researched it before we took our trip to
Paris back in twenty nine. Team was that when we
did that Um, because we spent a lot of time
(06:40):
walking around Mamarch. He did indeed, and that, you know,
might have been nice to do with that additional bit
of context. I mean, the good news is Mal Matra
is still there. We can still at some point and
do it all over again, look for at least the
space is where where he could have been, even though,
(07:03):
like his building burned down and went not so yeah, yeah,
I mean, any excuse to go to Paris. Yeah, let's
do it. Yeah, as soon as I got to the
part where the minute he got to Paris, he was like,
this is where I want to be, I was like,
he and holly are kindred spirits. I was just like, yes,
this is the history person of my dreams. Yeah, yeah,
(07:25):
I would love to hang with him. Are you kidding?
Like the fact that he is Um, he was such
a chameleon in terms of like being able to turn
his efforts to so many different vocations and do pretty
well in all of them. Like I like that he
became a jazz drummer, and not only was he like, Oh, yeah,
I can get booked because people need a drummer so bad,
but Zelli is also like I also need you to
(07:47):
like run this business for me and he's like Oh, okay, yeah,
he was. He was also characterized as like good, but
not great at most of the things that he tried.
So he was like a good pilot but not a
great one, and a good drummer but not a great one.
I was like you keep saying that, just just like
I've the number of things that he tried to do professionally.
(08:10):
I don't think it's reasonable to expect that he would
have been great at all of them. I love a
Jack of all trade story. I love it. He's a
renaissance man. Yeah, I think probably of all the things
that he tried, the thing he was probably the best
at was like running that nightclub like that. Like that,
that aspect of it seems to be where he had
the most standout success, versus being a boxer or a
(08:34):
combat pilot or whatever, where it was more like he
was he was pretty good, and a spy, and a spy,
holy Moses, what a life like? That's the kind of
life that, if it were fiction, you'd be like this
is kind of a lot. You could let's edit out
part one of these jobs please. So, yeah, you cain
(08:59):
pull he's great. I really enjoyed doing this episode. Once again,
happy Friday. Whatever is coming up for your weekend, I
hope it's great. If it's not great, I hope there's
at least like a moment of rest and peace for you.
We'll have a brand new episode on Monday, Saturday, classic tomorrow,
(09:20):
which is Saturday, and you can subscribe to our show
on the I heart radio APP, wherever else you like
to get podcasts. Stuff you missed in history class is
a production of I heart radio. For more podcasts from
I heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple
podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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