Eugene Bullard: Freedom in the Skies

Eugene Bullard would not let America diminish him. So he left to find a place that would let him live free — and found freedom in the skies.

On the Very Special Episodes podcast, we tell one incredible story each week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a movie!” Follow us down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.

VERY SPECIAL CREDITS
Hosted by Zaron Burnett, Dana Schwartz, and Jason English
Special Thanks to Zaron's Pops
Written by Zaron Burnett
Produced by Josh Fisher
Story Editors are Marisa Brown and Ryan Murdock
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs and Josh Fisher
Additional Editing by Emily Marinoff
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Voice Actors are Jonathan Washington and Chris Childs
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Research and Fact Checking by Zaron Burnett and Austin Thompson
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is an iHeart.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Original orders came into the airfield from headquarters. The biplanes
were readied. They're engines primed, their machine guns loaded. Now

(00:35):
the sky machine's idle. They wait only for their pilots.
The date September eighth, nineteen seventeen. The time a few
minutes before eight a m. The World War the first one.
A young corporal climbs up onto the lower wing of
his biplane, a single engine French plane. The aircraft is

(00:55):
constructed of the lightest possible materials, canvas and wood. The
skin of the plane's fuselage is a delicate, lacquered canvas.
There are support struts that hold the two biplane wings
in balance. It's a controlled tension of metal wires and
wooden struts. Up front, there's the propeller. The giant wooden
screw works the same as it would for a boat,

(01:16):
but rather than push as it would for the boat,
the propeller pulls the plane forward into the sky. The
heaviest part of the plane is the one hundred and
eighty horse power eight cylinder Hispanio Sueeze, a radial engine
made of steel and aluminum. It isn't much different than
the sort of car motor that powers a forward model
t Its eight radial cylinders are cooled with oil just

(01:39):
the same, but as the biplane shimmys and shakes, its
oil splatters out of the engine. It sprays against a
pilot's face. Ah With a swing of his leg, the
corporal lowers himself into the open cockpit. His co pilot, Jimmy,
settles into his spot down at the feet of the pilot.
You see, Jimmy is a capuchin monkey. He even has

(02:00):
his own little flight suit. The pilot he checks his
Vickers machine gun. He wants to guarantee it's loaded before
he's up there the sky. The guns are indeed ready
for action, fully loaded with four hundred rounds of seven
point seven millimeter ammunition. The pilot waits for the signal
to take off. He and his capuchin monkey copilot braved
the tense moments of anticipation. Jimmy, the monkey at his feet,

(02:22):
senses the pilot's nerves.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's as obvious as.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
His shaking feet, or maybe that shaking is due to
the engine. This is the pilot's first combat flight. It's
also the first flight in history by an African American
military pilot of course, this did not happen in America.
The pilot was not flying for America because check the year.
This was nineteen seventeen, and America was still deep in

(02:47):
its institutional racism. Thus, for a black man, he had
to travel to France to become a pilot. And there
in the land of Liberte Egalite for Tonite, he earned
his wings and so on that fateful September eighth, nineteen seventeen,
the pilot sits in his Spad seven biplane waiting for

(03:08):
the future to become the present. Located just past the cockpit,
painted there on the fuselage of the plane, there's a
bright red heart and it's pierced by a dagger. The
heart bleeds in French are painted the words.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Du song kikuile erouge.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
In English, this means all blood that flows runs red.
The pilot is Eugene Bullard, and those six words are
his life's creed. Just after eight am, the signal is given,
it's time to take to the sky. Eugene Bullard recalls
later in his unpublished autobiography that fateful moment in aviation history.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
The order was given party, meaning go. The chalks were
pulled away and so we did fast. I sincerely believe
that there's never been a pilot aviator who did not
have a funny feeling on his first combat patrol and
who wasn't really scared the first time that he faced
the enemy in the air. I am not ashamed to

(04:06):
himIt these fans about myself, why should I be? I
am not an angel, nor am I hero. Anyhow, I
was determined to do all that was in my power
to make good as I knew that the eyes of
the world were watching me as the first Negro military
pilot in the world. I felt the same way Limbert
felt when he was the first to fly from New

(04:27):
York to Paris, France. I had to do it or die,
and I didn't want to die.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
your host, Zarn Burnette, and this is Eugene Bullard. A
man finds freedom in the skies.

Speaker 5 (04:52):
So I have a light spoiler. The next voice you're
gonna hear after we're done talking is Zaren's dad. So
good to have Zaren Jr. Back on this podcast with
Zarin the third YEP. We did a show a few
years ago, Black Cowboys, which was an large part Jaron
and his father talking about these stories that his dad
had told him when he was a kid.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
He's quite a character and he loves being there, so
he's always happy to do it, always happy to be
on the mic. And I got to say, it was
so much fun for me to be the one getting
to tell him the story this time, instead of him
always telling me the stories. Because he had not known
about Eugene Bowart. He knew the name, he was familiar
a little with the legend, but I sent him the
books and I was like, let's read these together and
then we'll talk about this. So that was like a
total fun inversion.

Speaker 6 (05:34):
I had never heard of this character before, which was
always thrilling for me. I feel like I immediately go down
a Wikipedia rabbit hole after everything.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
I read about the Tusky Yearman in the Negro Digest,
which was a monthly magazine like Reader's Digest, only it
was much much, much better and much more directed. They
carved Black American life in the country almost from a
literary standpoint as opposed to a journalistic you know. So
they had Richard Wright writing for them in Chester Hines

(06:09):
people like that. So the Tuskegee Airmen were a big
favorite in the Negro Digest because there's black pilots. You know,
I understand it's Tuskegee, it's Booker t you know, so
it was easy for people to remember the Tuskegee Airmen.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
That's my pops. His name is Zaren Burnett, Junr. Which
is why I'm the third. But more than just his name,
my pops also gave me a wealth of stories back
when I was a child. If you've listened to the
podcast we made together Black Cowboys, then you already know this.
If not, just know he did. My pops told me
all kinds of stories.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
You see, my father is.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
A writer, a cultural historian, the kind of man who
can wax poetic about nearly anything. So he told me
about black cowboys for bedtime stories. But also as we drove,
he told me about civil rights leaders watching the game.
He told me of his old sports heroes discussing the news.
He told me of cultural warriors, freedom fighters on road trips.
It was tales of outlaw folk heroes, labor leaders, anarchists, communists, entrepreneurs, philosophers, writers, artists,

(07:12):
opera singers, and of course one of my favorites, the
Tuskegee Airmen. Those were proud black men he'd first learned
about when he was a boy. The Tuskegee Airmen made
their name famous in World War Two, but in the
First World War, Eugene Bullard was the sole black pilot
from the United States and he was flying for France

(07:35):
as a volunteer. America would eventually join the Triple en
tant aka the Allies. That's France, the UK, and Russia.
Also Japan joined in as well as their colonial possessions
aka the people living under the various imperial rules. Together
they all fought against the central Powers Germany, Austria, Hungary,

(07:57):
the Ottoman Empire, along with other many smaller nations on
both sides. Now, during World War One, air combat.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Was in its infancy.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Nearly everything was a first. It also introduced a new
battlefield up in the sky. Air combat forever changed the
nature of war. But when Eugene Bullard was a pilot,
it was all brand, spank and new. It still had
that new plane smell. That first day Eugene Bullard ever
flew in combat, there were a dozen or so Newport

(08:27):
and Spad biplanes in the sky with him. The biplanes
they flew in a V formation, high above the bloody
trench warfare below. They flew east across the German lines,
and no anti aircraft guns sighted them, no enemy planes
engaged them. The squadron tempted fate all the way to
a town called Mets. There they turned and made the

(08:48):
return trip back to their airfield. Before they crossed back
over from the German side. This time, a few anti
aircraft guns did spot them, and they fired. Shells rocketed
into the sky, singing past the biplanes like angry, murderous fireworks,
but no artillery shell struck its target. The squadron flew back,

(09:11):
passing over the battlefield or Verdun, that seething mud pit
was claiming lives from both sides by the thousands that morning.
Fighting was not yet underway, fresh slaughter in carnage was
not yet wetting the earth with blood and lost lives.
But when Eugene Bullard soared over Verdun, what he experienced
was a rare exhilaration. He'd fought in those same trenches,

(09:35):
manned a man slogging through the mud toting a machine gun,
But now his first day behind the stick of a plane,
it was more than just history. It was a personal revelation.
Eugene Bullard touched the heavens and then he returned to
earth the first black American combat pilot. Reading his story,

(09:58):
I wondered about some things I knew. I could ask
my pops, why does it matter that he was black
and that he was the first? I mean, like, do
not think a black person can fly a plane? Is
he another further example that we are indeed equals of
white folks. I mean, come on more evidence in an
argument we've been making for centuries, Like why does it
matter that he was the first black American combat pilot?

(10:21):
I mean, ultimately, now, being a generation older, I wanted
to hear my pops take on all of this.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
You know, no, but nobody told me he should learn
how to be a boxer, but learned horsemanship, then learn
how to be a boxer, then learn how to play
the drums, then open then open the club, then the
end stage shows, then become a fighter pilot. You know,
it's like that's a that's the hell of a person.
That doesn't translate into other people. You know that that's
like Michael L'Angelo, Like that's that's a different kind of person.

(10:50):
Leonardo da Vinci. There are no other tags like Leonardo
da Vinci. So that wasn't an Italian thing, that was
a da Vinci thing. This is like this is a bullet,
you know. That's He's just an amazing guy. I think
the tendency to look at black people as a race
kind of compromises the individual achievements and the ciation for them.
Because if you just look at him as an individual,
not as the first black pilot, but look just look

(11:12):
at what he did. Don't look at it as compared
to other black people, look at it as compared to
other people.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
What you're left with is a hero, a man who
demanded he was a citizen of the world, his soul
too big for the smallness that America insisted and legally demanded.
Eugene Bullard was a black man who would not let
America diminish him, and thus he had to leave to
find a land that would let him live freely, and

(11:41):
like many true patriots, he was willing to die for
that privilege.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
The thing that resonates for me with him is he
lived in life exactly as I believe a free person
should live. What he wanted to do was live as
a free person, not as a free black man, not
as a free American. He wanted to be a free person,
and then he set about doing that without asking anybody
for permission, without having anybody defined it for him. And

(12:05):
that's what being free me. You walk through your life
making your own the choices at every point. And he
did that, and I think that's the highest level of
human achievement, to be a freeman, to be a free woman.
Once you're free, then everything is open to you. Then
the whole world is open to you.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia on October ninth,
eighteen ninety five. He's the seventh of ten children born
to Josephine Joklee Thomas, a woman of mixed Creek Muskogee heritage.
His father was William big Ox Bullard, a black man
born into slavery two enslaved parents, and like them, he
also worked the plantation fields. Later, after the enslaved reliberated,

(12:53):
he labored on the docks down in the riverfront of Columbus,
Georgia now Yokale and big Ox's seventh child, Eugene, he
gets raised into that same life. He started elementary school,
but dropped out to work the family farm with his father.
His mother, Yokule, passed away when he was young.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
So this is a single father with uh with seven kids,
and he wasn't home a lot of the time because
he was working, so that he had to trust those
seven kids to recognize and avoid danger.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
For one very good reason, they were living in deeply
racist Georgia at the turn of the century, which is
the same state where my pops lives now. Thus he
knows well that even today, avoiding the dangers of racism in.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Georgia, they'll drive you crazy.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
The threat of bigotry was a daily consideration. His father,
Big Ox, became highly protective of his kids, rarely letting
them stray from the family farm, limiting their freedom for
their benefit.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
I recognize exactly why Big Ox acted the way he did,
because he knew better than his sons what the danger
actually was. So you keep them close until they are
old enough to understand the danger they're going to encounter
in yours and in Georgia, the danger was always death.
There was always death, dismemberment and death, and they were

(14:13):
going to get away with it. So Big Ox, and
I'm gonna keep you the.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Threat was so immediate. When Eugene Bullard was a boy,
a lynch mob came to his home with the express
intent to lynch his father, Big Ox. There'd been a
workplace disagreement between his father and a white guy named Stevens,
the foreman at the job site. His father tried mightily
to resist the showdown he saw coming. As Eugene Bullard

(14:37):
recorded in his autobiography, Eugene never forgot what Big Ox
told his seven children shortly before the fight.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
If I have to hit Stevens, I want you all
to be good children. Always show respect to each other
and everyone white and black, and make them respect. You
go to school as long as you can. Never look
for a fight, I mean never. But if you are attacked, well,
your honor is attacked unjustly. Fight, fight, keep on fighting,

(15:08):
even if you definite right, it will be a glorious death.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
He sounds like a Viking, not just a black laborer
in the Jim Crow South. He also sounds like my pop,
who told me nearly the same thing, because that's what
his father, the first xerend told him.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Well said. Look, don't ever start a fight, but don't
ever run from one, which means in Georgia, you're gonna
have to ignore meaningless insults that if somebody hits you,
you have to do it. So I when I read it,
it was just very familiar.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Eventually, Big Ox could no longer avoid the foreman, and
thus he could no longer avoid the fight. Finally, the
inevitable occurs. One day, the foreman comes at Big Ox
with a huge iron hook. It's the sort of hook
used to load bales of cotton. He swings it and
strikes Big Ox in the head. The iron hook splits

(16:01):
open a deep headwound, but the blow does not kill
Big Ox. Enraged, he picks up the four dorman and
throws him down into a cargo hole.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
He was ignoring all of the provocations and then the
guy hit him an nessie, I can't take that.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Big Ox had to know his active self defense could
mean his life. Thankfully, the owner of the job site,
also white, is on Big Ox's side. He tells them
go home, lay low until the anger blows over.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
That didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
The anger gets drunk that night, The anger gets bigger,
It recruits some white friends. The anger becomes a lynch party,
and then the anger rides out under torchlight to find
Big Ox inside the family home. Big Ox and his
kids huddle in the darkness, staying silent as a cemetery crypt.
The lynch party, drunk as they are, eventually gives up.

(16:55):
The men ride off, but lying there silent in the dark,
young Eugene Bullard makes a decision. He decides.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
The sun decided, I got to get out of Georgia.
This is going to be the way to live. And
that's as much as his dad wouldn't want him to
have reached that conclusion about getting out of Georgia, he
did want him to understand the dangers, and he saw
it said night. He saw the actual danger that they
were living among every second of every day.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Ironically, it was his father who'd first planted the seed
of a dream of a life in a better land.
That was why, sometime after his eleventh birthday, Eugene Bullard
ran away from home and would keep running until he
could get himself to France. His father had told him
about Paris and France and how black people were legally
equal to anyone else there thanks to the French Revolution.

(17:49):
You see, unlike the Revolution in America after Theirs, the
French legally made all their citizens equal, or rather relative equals.
To young Eugene Bullard, age eleven, that was good enough.
It seemed like a place where someone like him could
enjoy a decent life. So Eugene Bullard runs away from home,
and he stays away, even though Big Ox hunts after

(18:10):
him in order to bring him back to the family home.
His father, though, doesn't catch up with his son, and
so for their first time in his life, now Eugene
Bullard feels truly free, free but alone.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
One of the things about his whole story is it
almost doesn't have borders. He's just loose in the world.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
In time, he finds a new family camping on the
edges of Atlanta. They are a roma family of wanderers
from England. They call themselves the Stanleys, and they take
in the boy out there alone in the world. They
see he's good with the horses, and they decide he
can camp with them. So in nineteen eleven, at age fifteen,
After he camps with the Stanleys for a number of

(18:53):
years and he learns that they have no plans to
return to Europe, Eugene Bullard decides it's time he finally
head on to France.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
On his own.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
He first makes his way alone to Norfolk, Virginia. He
goes down to the harbor, hangs out, gets to know
some sailors, men who speak strange languages. After some study
of the sailors, he decides he'd stow away on a
German freighter. He's finally on his way now to the
promised land of France, or so he hopes. I asked
my pops what he'd heard about France from older black

(19:24):
folks when he was young.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
It wasn't a promised land, but it was a place
that did not have legal segregation. It did not have
legal designations by race, So the problem you would have
in France would be individuals, and usually Americans.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Next stop, Europe. Now truly loose in the world, Eugene
Bullard trusts in good luck to protect him. A teenage stowaway,
all he knows is that he's headed to a land
of which he's only dreamed. But he doesn't make it

(19:59):
to France.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Instead, he gets off of Scotland because it's the first
port of call. So in Scotland, all the people he
meets there he gets along with fied he already has
experienced in their life that he went there.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
To have He ends up staying in Aberdeen and later Glasgow,
Scotland for a year, and Liverpool, England for several months.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
And then he goes to London and London is even
more impressive to him and more welcoming. And then he
becomes a fighter in England.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Eugene Bullard becomes a professional boxer and he's good. His
father's words take on new meaning every time he steps
into the ring. Now he's fighting for respect, but as
a professional, as someone that folks cheer on as he
wallops his opponents, often white men. The black American heavyweight
champion of the world at the time, Jack Johnson, has
let an international fever for crowds eager to see black boxers.

(20:49):
That's how boxing earns Eugene Bullard. His first trip across
the Channel to France, he's finally made it. He walks
the streets of Paris and finds it's everything he'd hope
for and far far more.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
And then he goes to Paris and he's like, this
is just what I want, this is what I came
here for.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
A year later, when the timing's right, Eugene Bullard moves
to Paris. He works as a professional boxer, and Paris
wraps its arms around him and welcomes him into the
city's bosom. He's home. He makes his name and fame
in the boxing ring. He's now very good at punching
men in the face. His life in Paris is even better.
And he's not alone. There are many other black expats, writers, artists, musicians,

(21:34):
folks from America who came and made a life for
themselves too. They found that they could create and just be.
They tasted, savored, and enjoyed what life could be for
someone free of American racism.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
It was a very pleasant existence. You could pursue your interest.
You didn't have to cuff the sidewalk when a white
person came towards you. Like in North Carolina, a white
person walks towards you on the sidewalk, you got to
step off the sidewalk until they passed. None of that,
none of that, None of that stuff was happening. There's
nothing you could not buy, there's no place you could
not live. You know, there was nothing to fine for

(22:11):
you just because of your skin color. So now what's
defined for you is based on your ability to manage
your opportunities. I wanted to live in Paris. I wanted
to finish, finish college and move to Paris. That's what
I wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
I'd never known this about my pop, that he'd also
dreamed of running off to Paris to go and taste
that good life for himself.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
I could see myself strolling down to Chance Leys with
my beret arm and I was in France. I could
see me at the sidewall cafe with my cane, you know,
drinking my prienew geting people, and then leaving there and
going back to my studio and spending the afternoon riding,

(22:51):
and then come back in the evening to the cafes,
have a drinks, and then go to the club. So
I could be there forever.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
In nineteen fourteen, just as Eugene Bullard is fully enjoying
the life he's always craved, the life he crossed a
sea for and abandon all that he knew. He hears
the drums of war sound in the distance. The beating
grows louder and louder, until the war everyone fears would
come finally arrives.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
I've always believed that war is the ultimate failure of humanity.
I don't think anything, anything justifies war. I don't think
anything can make it right. I don't think any kind
of war ever makes sense. I only think the only
war I would ever fight in would be to put
off an invasion. If I'm at home, in my home,

(23:37):
our country, and they pull up to the shore with
ships and they're gonna fight, then yeah, that's that's self defense.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Despite the obvious insanity, obscenity, and cruelty of war, when
it arrives, there is nothing to be done but to fight,
because when the fight comes to your borders, you must
defend your home. And that is what France is now
to Eugene Bullard, a homeland worth dying for, and Bullard
is a fighter with his fists or now with machine guns.

(24:06):
World War One begins in August of nineteen fourteen, and
it will last for four years. When the war starts,
America is reluctant to join and remains isolated out of
the war for its early years. But Eugene Bullard he
fights the entire time. Since he's a foreigner, he cannot
serve in the regular French Army. Instead, he volunteers for

(24:27):
the French Foreign Legion. My pops had apparently dreamed of
this too.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
The French Foreign Legion was always attractive because it had
no borders. The people he fought with were from every
walk of life in the many countries I mean Peple.
Harvey graduates people he could not associate with in America,
people who would never have been in the same company
with him, and they out there fighting back to back,
side by side.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
One year into the war. Eugene Bullard is an experienced
combat veteran, a machine gunner who's fought in trench warfare
along the Psalm Front, one of the bloodiest fronts in
the war. He's also at the Second Battle of Champagne.
All the fighting is horrific night marrish.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
By the the end of.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
The year, the French Foreign Legion loses nearly half the
soldiers under its command, yet Bullard somehow stays out of
harm's way. However, in March of nineteen sixteen, Bullard's luck
finally runs out. He's severely wounded taken off the battlefield.
Over time, he heals up and eventually returns with a

(25:27):
new unit, the one hundred and seventieth French Infantry Regiment
known as Les Hrondez de la mort in English. The
swallows of death with the one hundred and seventieth He
fights in Verdun, one of the most gruesome battles of
World War One. At Verdun, artillery shells shriek above the
heads of mud and blood covered soldiers and Bullard. He

(25:49):
gets injured multiple times. At one point his mouth is
sewn back together, the wound a result of an exploding
artillery shell. But Bullard, he just drinks strong French wine
and he fights on. Eugene Bullard kills Germans and their
allies with a pitiless efficiency. His machine gun in hand,
he stays busy putting enemy bodies down relentlessly, continuously, battle

(26:13):
after battle. His bravery is astounding, Yet he does not
relish killing the bosche that's French slang for the German soldiers,
As he says.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
If anyone had seen me come out of that shell hole,
he would have not recognized me because I was white.
As soon as I was out of the hole, I
began to feel kind of bad about having to kill
even a bouche. You see, in spite of all the
things I've been credited with doing war in the medals
I received for them, I mustn'tmit sincerely that I love people.

(26:46):
I never in my life wanted to kill anyone. I
only wanted to keep someone from killing me.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's the same philosophy my pops advocated to me and
the Big Ox told Eugene Bollard. Now, those medals that
Bullard mentions so casually, two of them were the Quais
de Guerre and the metayi Miltea, two of the highest
honors France can bestow on a soldier for acts of
valor and bravery. Eugene Bullard is just twenty years old. Meanwhile,

(27:18):
Bullard now must also recover from the multiple serious injuries
he receives in Verdunt for three months at a military
clinic and three more at a private clinic. Bullard recuperates
at the private clinic. This is where he meets a man,
a fellow war hero who will change the course of
his life, a man named Comandant Ferrillino. While recovering from

(27:38):
their injuries, the two veterans get to talking Comandant Ferrolino.
He mentions that the Air Service is looking for new
skilled soldiers to become machine gunners for the biplane pilots
aerial machine gunners. Bullard wants his chance on that new
battlefield in the sky. Bullard tells Ferrolino he'd like to
seek a transfer to the Air Service, and Ferrolino promises

(27:58):
he'll put in a good word for him. Eugene Bullard
desperately wants to fly. He even goes and makes a
wager with a friend that he'll be the first black
fighter pilot. This is in September of nineteen sixteen.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Bouldard.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
He goes out drinking with three friends. One friend asks
Bullard what's next for him. He mentions his plans to
become a pilot. His friend laughs and then says, you
know there ain't any negroes in aviation. Bullard responds, sure,
I do. That's why I want to get into it.
Another friend he takes Bullard's side. He says he believes
Bullard can do it. Their bet now takes shape the

(28:32):
American who reminded him that he was a Negro. He
wagers two thousand dollars that Bullard will wash out before
he ever gets a chance to fly. Now, it should
be no surprise that.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
The Americans who are in France took their bigotry with it.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Two grand was a lot of money in nineteen sixteen.
It's the equivalent of fifty seven thousand dollars today. It's
an insane bet. The white American friend is so duly
blinded by his own casual bigotry he thinks it's a
sure bet, a safe bet in America anyway, Eugene Bullard,
he takes the wager, even if he doesn't have that
kind of the Next day, though, he puts the money

(29:09):
down on the table, fronted by the friends who'd believed
in him. The wager now said it's up to Bullard
to learn to fly. He bids farewell to his friends,
and Commandant Ferlino does indeed put in a good word
for Bullard with the Inspector General of all French flight schools.
So at the start of October nineteen sixteen, Eugene bowlerd

(29:31):
reports to flight training at Casalach Airfield. For seven months,
he trains to be a pilot, and finally, on May fifth,
nineteen seventeen, he's awarded his military's pilot license number sixty
nine fifty.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
He can't wait to.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Tell his friends he's given a six day pass to
go and visit Paris. Bullard proudly wears his Horizon blue
French pilot's tunic, his squadroned uniform adorned by his gold
aviator wings proof he's a true airman, a pilot. While
home in Paris, he plans to settle up on his bet.
He meets up with his friends at a bar where

(30:07):
they're waiting for him. The American friend who'd bet against
him sees Bullard's stroll in wearing his new uniform.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
He knows he's lost.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
He doesn't even try to argue, he doesn't ask whose
uniform it really is.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Nope, he just pays up.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Now, Bullard's winnings will fund a night to remember for
him and his friends, and interestingly, the losing better A
Southern man from America, he says, and I quote, I
don't like to lose that kind of money to anyone,
but I am glad that the first Negro military pilot
came from Dixie. Now, there was an American journalist who

(30:42):
hears about the first black combat pilot, and he interviews
Eugene Bullard for a story for the New York Herald Tribune.
But it's only published in the French language version. The
story doesn't run in the American edition. It's not a
story us newspapers want to publish, whether that's in the
Jim Crow South or not. Sadly, American racism is about

(31:04):
to reach across the Atlantic to one again limit the
potential of Eugene Bullard's life, because on April sixth, nineteen seventeen,
the US joins World War One, and that changes everything
for Bullard. American racism has already arrived in the person
of one doctor Edmund L. Gross, an unrepentant racist. Doctor

(31:26):
Gross was a key figure behind getting American pilots to
fly for France early in the war, and as a
part of his advocacy, he's vice president of this committee
that's designed to handle these recruits, which puts him in
a position of power over Eugene Bullard.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
That's why he went to France to get away from Americans.
And then he gets over there and then they have
an American and he's doing over there exactly the thing
that may bullet lead America. You know, said the French
weren't doing it, The French weren't doing it. The American
came there and did it.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yes, it's like, of course, but it's worse than just
doctor Gross. When the American expeditionary forces arrive in the
European theater, its officers bring the full force of their
prejudice and bigotry with them. For instance, the white American
Army officers formed this all Black Army Division and they
loan these US soldiers to the French Army for trench warfare.

(32:21):
The black soldiers are intended to be used as cannon fodder,
but they turn out to be excellent fighters. The Germans
their enemy. They nickname them the Harlem hell fighters for
their ferocity. They earn metal after metal, as well as
the respect of their French commanders. So now members of
the US Army reach out to say, that's all well
and good, but don't let those black boys get big heads.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
The Americans wrote a letter to the other French authorities
saying that you know, y'all treating these black people too good.
You know, that's that's not how we treat them in America.
You know, they're gonna mess around and go home thinking
that they got rights that we're not going to give them.
So y'all need to just stop fucking themund with our
black people. They feed their regular people now now because
of you all freed them like that, And this is

(33:07):
how We're going to do it because there's all over
it and go back home with us. We don't want
them going home acting like this.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
On August seventh, nineteen eighteen, a memo gets sent to
officers by someone from the French military authorities. It's been
alleged doctor Gross was responsible for the memo. Its title
secret Information concerning Black American troops. Now Here are a
few highlights. The French public has been accustomed to treating
the Negro with familiarity and indulgence. This indulgence and this

(33:37):
familiarity are matters of grievous concern to the Americans. They
are afraid that contact with the French will inspire in
Black Americans aspirations which to them, the whites appear intolerable.
Although a citizen of the United States, the black man
is regarded by the white American as an inferior being. Now,
this letter had also cautions against and I quote, the

(34:01):
rise of any pronounced degree of intimacy between French officers
and Black officers. So what that means is no shaking hands,
no fraternizing, no jokes. Now, as far as the native
French population, that's another stipulation. And the army brass urges
their commanders to and I quote make a point of
keeping the native population from quote spoiling the Negroes. White

(34:23):
Americans become greatly incensed at any public expression of intimacy
between white women with black men. Undeterred, Bullard takes to
the sky, the first black combat pilot, soars over the
French countryside in his Spad seven biplane, and legend has
it with a heart with a dagger visible from below

(34:44):
Tutson quiquire erouge or all blood that flows runs red.
On September eighth, nineteen seventeen, Eugene Bullard climbs back into
his Spad seven biplane for his second official mission as
a pilot. His co pilot, Jimmy the capuchin monkey, climbs
into the cockpit and joins him. The pair are ready
to be borne back into the skies. About the monkey.

(35:08):
At the time, in Europe and in the US, there
was an animal mania, a trend for eccentrics in the
hip and for avant garde types to keep exotic pets.
For instance, Langston Hughes he kept a pet monkey. Josephine
Baker she had a pet cheetah, and Eugene Bullard. He
has Jimmy the Capution Monkey as his co pilot. Now
their commander Major Menard, he will be the lead for

(35:31):
this thirty three plane squadron. He orders the pilots to
keep a tight formation, just like they have trained. If
they're engaged by the enemy, there to break up into
groups of seven or eight planes. Minard pauses at Bullard's
biplane and he tells him to stick close to his
side during maneuvers. We must not lose you too soon,
Bullard or pause. Jimmy will be an often now. Jimmy

(35:54):
the Monkey he came into Bullard's life while he was
on leave. He was out drinking in Paris and there
were card games involved, bets bade wagers one anyway, Bullard
leaves Paris with Jimmy the Monkey as his new co pilots,
so Jimmy becomes Bullard's lucky charm. The squadron taxies onto
the runway. They roar their engines to take off speed.

(36:17):
When the biplanes catch the wind beneath their wings, they
lift up into the heavens clouds above and below them.
The squadron flies in formation. The pilots in their open cockpits,
their eyes shielded from the wind by goggles which are
getting coated in that thin patina of droplets of oil
from the shaking and shuddering engine. They still scan the

(36:39):
skies for enemy planes. Freezing cold air chaps their bare cheeks.
It doesn't take the squadron long before the pilots spy
a group of four German bombers flying low and slow.
The bombers have sixteen biplanes and triplanes protecting them from attack.
The French pilots maneuver into an attack formation. Commander Minard,

(37:01):
he gives the hand signal, and then hell breaks loose
among the heavens. The quiet of gray skies gives way
to the ratatat tat of machine guns, the sound of
hot metal slices through the air, and the canvas of
the biplanes. Eugene Bullard grips his planes control stick, He
pushes it, and the plane dives low at the ground.

(37:23):
When he yanks back on the stick, the biplane climbs
towards the sun. When he aims his machine guns at
the tails and fuselages of the German biplanes, his commander's
words play like a recording in his mind.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
Don't forget that there are always three ways to be
brought down, or should I say, to lose your life
in the air. The most dangerous way is by your adversary.
The second is by artillery from the ground. Then there
can be a collision. So please watch out for these
three dangers. If you must collide with someone in the air,
please let it be a German.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
There are dozens of planes in the skies, some friendly,
some foe. The biplanes are a violent swirl of motion
like a flamenco dancers skirt is on fire, only far
deadlier than any dancer's contortions and spins. Bullard he sees
black smoke erupt from planes, both friendly and foe. Bullard

(38:19):
pushes away his fears and any thoughts of failure. He
grips the trigger and he squeezes, and he squeezes again.
The cockpit shakes with the ratatat tat of his machine gun.
Keep in mind, neither Bullard nor any of the other
pilots have parachutes. They've been invented, but they were cumbersome
in a tight cockpit, and pilots they're macho figures. So instead,

(38:42):
a pilot's only hope is to return his plane safely
to the earth, either with its landing gear or in
a controlled crash. The trouble with a controlled crash is
that the plane might flip or roll, and then the
pilots will be trapped in the wreckage and burned to
death before they can be saved. Bullard doesn't think of
any such fiery death, not at the moment, nor does

(39:03):
he think of the German bullets slicing the air all around. Instead,
he thinks only of his training and the sound of
his own machine guns, and the freedom in the heavens
that he's come to enjoy. As he boldly defies death,
a French comrade shoots down a German bomber. The plane
explodes with a terrific boom. The other three German bombers

(39:24):
have already been down. They crashed behind French battlefield lines.
Two German Fokker biplanes also spin down to the earth
and both crash. The German planes send up falls of
flame and pillars of smoke. Two French pilots are also
shot down. Bullard, though remains aloft among the clouds. When

(39:49):
the squadron finally returns to the airfield, a mechanic points
out to Bullard the seven German bullet holes ripped through
the tail section of his plane. He's lucky the Germans
pilot's aim wasn't any better. Bullard has officially been bloodied
in aerial combat for the first time.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
It will not be his last.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Five days later, on September thirteenth, nineteen seventeen, Eugene Bullard
was transferred to a new squadron as a replacement pilot.
Soon enough, he becomes his new commander's wingman. By the
end of October, Bullard has flown in twenty successful combat
missions and he's just twenty two years old. On November seventeenth,

(40:33):
he downs his first German plane, a try Wing Fokker
from the famous Red Barren Squadron the Flying Circus. But
in that same dogfight, Bullard also gets shot down. He
slams his plane down into a bog. It's a soft
place to land. It's also wet, so there's less fire risk.

(40:54):
Bullard survives the crash, but then when he climbs out
of his half wrecked plane, gun shots ring out from
an unseen German machine gun, so Bullard drops down and
hides in the swamp. Then he crawls to a tree
line and waits for dark. Eventually he hears friendly French voices.
A fellow pilot must have seen Bullard's plane go down.

(41:16):
A team of airplane mechanics comes out to save Bullard
and to save his plane. There are ninety six bullet
holes in the fuselage, but it's still in good enough
shape that they toe his biplane back to the airfield,
and two days later Bullard earns his second aerial combat victory.
It's November nineteenth, nineteen seventeen. Bullet's flying with a small squadron,

(41:39):
just seven SPADs and Newport biplanes. The planes are at
twelve thousand feet high above the horrors of Verdun. The
clouds are thick and fat, like fluffy, overfed sheep. Bullard's
propeller slices through one of the fat, fluffy clouds, but
when he emerges, he's all alone in the sky. His
squadron is nowhere to be seen. He casts his eyes about,

(42:03):
scanning the horizon for his comrades. He spies some planes
flying low about nine thousand feet below him. He wonders
how his squadron got so low so quickly. Then he
counts the biplanes. They aren't his comrades. It's a German
scout patrol. He gauges his speed against theirs. Bullard decides

(42:25):
he can get the drop on them, descend unseen, engage
an attack from above, possibly take out one or two
German planes before they even know he's there. He aims
his biplane. He pushes hard on the control stick, and
his plane dives. When he's just about fifty meters away,
close enough to see the face of the German pilot,

(42:45):
Bullard squeezes the trigger. His machine gun sprays death. His
aim is true. The bullets dot the German plane like
a morbid pointialism. The pilot of the German biplane turns
to look at his attacker. He catches hot metal right
in the face. There's a spray of red mist. The
plane loses control. It twists in the air, turns over,

(43:07):
and corkscrews down to the ground. Bullard turns his attention
to a second German plane just as it banks to
engage him. He fires at the second scout plane. Then
he yanks back hard on his stick and disappears into
a cloud bank. The Germans all chase after him, but
quickly lose him among those fat, fluffy white clouds. Since

(43:28):
he's alone. He has no one to confirm his down
to German pilot. Bullard, though, is overjoyed.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
He's done it, just.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
As he was trained to, just as he knew he
could if tested. When he returns to the airfield, Bullard
has no evidence of his bravery or his victory other
than what he carries in his memories. He doesn't know it,
and there was no way he could know it. But
Eugene Bullard is about to be grounded, not by a

(43:56):
German pilot, nor by their anti aircraft guns. Instead, he's
taken out by his original adversary, old fashioned American racism.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
So he hadn't end up along when the war broke out,
and instead of leaving, he enlisted. He became a pilot.
He was a machine gunner. He fighted in the trenches.
He was law to the idea of the people there.
He embraced France, but what he embraced was the people
who embraced him, and that's what he did consistently in
his life.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
The US enters the First World War on April sixth,
nineteen seventeen. Part of the war planning includes the creation
of the US Army Air Service for the expeditionary forces.
By October of nineteen seventeen, plans start getting put into action.
American pilots who volunteered to fly for France, now combat
trained veterans, are considered for selection as America's first fighter pilots.

(44:55):
Eugene Bullard goes through the required test and medical exams.
He passes with Flying Colors rated quote fit for duty.
Bullard's fitness for service also gets tested by any examining
board that includes doctor Gross, same as all his comrades
from the Lafayette Flying Corps. When the board recommends pilots
for service as America's first combat pilots, Bullard is on

(45:18):
the approved list. But the story doesn't end there because
to get transferred and to keep flying, a pilot had
to have an officer's rank, and Bullard wasn't about to
be given that by the Americans, which means, by way
of that technicality, he can't fly for the Americans, and
he's the only pilot to not receive an officer's rank

(45:39):
from the Americans. He's also the only black pilot, so
Bullard returns to his old French squadron. He continues to
try to fly with them. Determined to leave an undeniable
record as a combat pilot. He doesn't recognize it, not
at first, but his flying days are nearly done. Bullard's
duel with the German Scouts was his final mission as

(46:02):
a pilot. His time in the Skies lasted roughly ninety days.
He flew twenty five missions. According to his count. In
that time, he downed two German plains. His official record
only gives him credit for one combat victory. His legacy
is cut short thanks to one unfortunate incident. The reason

(46:22):
why Bullard is permanently grounded is at one level simple.
It's racism, Yet the telling of it requires some context.
As the war continues on and the bodies of young
men from both sides color the fields of France red,
with their blood dying by the thousands, their lives become
a sacrifice for the old men who run the war
and expend their lives in place of diplomacy. Yet there

(46:46):
are still places where the war feels distant, where people
get on with their lives best as they can even
have fun, like this city of lights, Paris on November
twenty third, nineteen seventeen. Eugene Bullard is in Paris on
a twenty four hour pass. He and his mechanic are
free to enjoy the city of Lights, free to enjoy

(47:06):
a taste of the civilization he and his comrades are
fighting to protect. After their day in Paris, the two
men take a train back to the airfield. When the
train stops in the town of Barladucue, the two men
get off and they decide to get a hotel room
for the night. They plan to enjoy a good dinner,
a night in clean, fresh sheets, then catch the first

(47:27):
morning train and still make it back to the airfield
in time for their day's mission. Except in the hotel
dining room, they run into trouble. After dinner, they're enjoying
the warm, pleasant burn of a brandy. A French officer
sees Bullard in his blue pilot's uniform. His gold aviator
wings catch the light. The officer motions for him to

(47:48):
come over. Bullard complies, seeing no reason for concern. Bullard
salutes him when he gets to the table, but the
French officer demands to know where Bullard stole the uniform
and his aviator wings. Bullard says nothing. Instead, he waits
for the French officer to return his salute. Bullard gets
tired of waiting. He tells the frenchman that no officer

(48:11):
is worthy of his respect until he learns to return
a salute. The French officer flies into an embarrassed rage.
Keep in mind, Bullard is a trained boxer with many
fights under his belt. He's not about to back down,
but like his dad told him, he's also not looking
for a fight either. Luckily, he doesn't have to use

(48:32):
his fists. A second officer, a major, intervenes. He recognizes Bullard.
He's heard of the black American volunteer pilot and decorated
hero of Verdun. He tells the French officer, this man
is a true hero of France.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
You should be ashamed of yourself.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
The major calms the near fight back down to a
reasonable temperature. The men all go their separate ways. Four
days later, Bullard receives a letter from doctor Gross. He
informs Bullard that his misconduct and quarrel with the superior
officer will cost him his gold wings. Bullard gets boot
from the squadron, given an immediate transfer back to the infantry.

(49:11):
He's ordered back to the front, back to the trenches.
That's the story Bullard tells in his autobiography, but there's
a second version of the story, one that his friends
at the time tell It starts the same Bullard is
on a twenty four hour pass in Paris. He enjoys
himself that night, but in this alternate version, the conflict

(49:31):
happens the next morning. As Bullard is heading back to
report for duty. He misses the morning train, so he
starts jogging back to the airfield. He hears a military
truck rumble up behind him. He hails the driver for
our ride. The driver pulls over stops the truck. Bullard
tries to climb aboard with the other soldiers. He pulls
himself up, but he gets shoved back down. He tries again,

(49:56):
second time, same result. Third time he tries to climb up,
he gets a boot. An angry voice says in French,
we don't want your kind on our truck. Doesn't tolerate
any prejudice, not here in France. He yanks the soldier
down off the truck by his boot, and the former
boxer kicks his ass. Bullard chaoso. He leaves the French

(50:20):
soldier in the mud, but turns out the French soldier
in that Ditch is a lieutenant, a rank above Buller's,
so for a corporal like Bullard to kick his ass,
he can face a court martial. His commanding officer, Doctor Gross,
hears about the fight, and he uses this news for
his own bigoted purposes. He immediately kicks Bullard out of

(50:43):
the flight program, demotes his rank, and sends him back
to fight on the front. Both stories end the same.
Bullard loses his wings get sent to likely die in
the trenches. We also know this fight in November saves
doctor Gross from having to justify why Bullard is the
only veteran pilot from the Flying Corps not approved to

(51:05):
become an American combat pilot. It seems suspicious, it seems
obviously prejudicial. But now doctor Gross has a way to
make all that talk go away, and he can ground
Bullard from flying with the French too. In one fell swoop,
he can enact his full racist agenda, no black pilots
in the sky. And we know this was his goal

(51:26):
because Doctor Gross said so himself. He writes in a
letter dated November sixteenth, nineteen seventeen.

Speaker 7 (51:35):
My dear Captain Hoffmann, this bullet dilemma has ended with
a very graceful solution. Bullard, who is a former prize fighter,
knocked out a French adjutant, for which he was given
ten days prison. This leads to his total elimination from
the aviation section of the French Army and to his
transfer into the ranks of the French Infantry. Under these conditions,
you will consider, of course, that he is morally unfit

(51:57):
to form a part of the United States Army, and
you can reject him on those grounds. At least one
doc cloud is dispensed from a horizon.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
And so in January of nineteen eighteen, Eugene Bullard is
ordered to rejoin the French one hundred and seventieth Infantry regimen.
Bullard does as a French Army orders, and he continues
to serve with honor and distinction all the way up
until the Armistice and even beyond. He's finally discharged in
nineteen nineteen. He leaves a French foreign legion, an honored

(52:29):
combat veteran, having earned the highest awards the French have
for battlefield bravery, the Medaille Militaire and the Quas de Guerre,
along with many other medals such as the Medaie des Verlan.
Yet years later, in nineteen twenty eight, when a memorial
is erected to the pilots in Paris to commemorate the
Flying Corps, doctor Gross works with his typical bigoted efficiency

(52:51):
to ensure Bullard's name isn't included on the memorial and
that his own name is included, despite the fact doctor
Gross was not a pilot. Plus some of the pilots
included never flew in combat, others didn't even finish flight school.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
Bullard said, the most pitiful thing I have ever heard.
The pilots of my time who knew me would.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Agree, and it was all on purpose orchestrated by doctor Gross.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
But why why.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Does doctor Gross fixate on Bullard? What does he get
out of being so petty, so vindictive, so small minded.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
As strongly as I believe that all people are fundamentally
the same, he strongly believes that white people are superior
to all other people, and he acts on that. That's
the whole basis of white supremacy. That they actually believe
that they are better than the other human beings on earth,

(53:48):
that they are fundamentally better, They are fundamentally superior and
different in ways that we can measure, and we can
show you. I think Gross believes that to as strongly
as I believe the exact opposite.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
And Gross must make his beliefs real in the world.
Bullard's success denies the truth that he lives by. He
can't have Bullard on a memorial or up there in
the skies. Given the first opportunity, he uses his power
to ground him. He just wants Bullard beneath him, not
above him in the clouds. However, Eugenie Bullard still has

(54:24):
one more turn to reinvent himself and to make history.
With the war over, Bullard returns to Paris, a city
brimming with new energy. His battlefield injuries leave him somewhat
gnarled and bent, unable to be the boxer he once was.
Yet he quickly finds new gainful employment at a legendary
place called Zelli's. It's a sort of Parisian night spot

(54:45):
where artists like Picasso and man Ray drink and carouse.
After the war, Bullard is working as a jazz drummer.
That's the brand new music coming out of nightclubs in
New Orleans and the reefer parties in New York City.
Over in Paris, the nightclub Zellies is the spot to
hear that hothouse jazz sound. So Bullard trades in his
pilot stick for a set of drumstone. Instead of hitting men,

(55:08):
now he's hitting the drumskins. Years later, when Hemingway wrote
about his life in Paris Between the Wars, he attempted
to render for readers the scene inside Zelly's. He wrote
a character based on Eugene Bullard in his novel The
Sun Also Rises. The Hemingway stand in Jake Barnes talks
with a romantic interest Lady Brett Ashley, and she indicates

(55:28):
the black drummer with the Southern accent, and she says
of the character based on Bullard, He's a great friend
of mine, and Lady bred adds, damn good drummer. Bulliard
was quite flattered to be included in Hemingway's beloved novel.
It was not his only time in print, though, or
in a famous book. Bullard also appeared in a book

(55:50):
by Langston Hughes in his memoir of his early footloose years,
The Big Sea, the Harlem Renaissance poet wrote about his
time in Paris when he gets a job as a
dishwasher and bus boy. It's Eugene Bullard who hires him.
They work together at a new jazz club called Le
Grand Duke. Now I knew about Langston Hughes's time in
Paris since my pops gave me his book to read

(56:11):
when I was a teenager. An incredible read. I highly
recommended it expanded my horizons. As my pop says.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
I love when history exposes itself. But the things you
know show up and unexpected. Not unexpected, because I know
what happened in that life, but I didn't expect it
to Just when the name started showing up at the club,
when the people talking about, like damn, everybody's in that motherfucker.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
That's not an understatement in the least. Bullard works with
Parisian nightclub legends like Bricktop and Josephine Baker. Bullard also
befriends many famous black cultural forces like the boxer Jack Johnson. Now,
while he's working as a jazz drummer, Bullard befriends a
number of early jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller.
They also come to France to enjoy the life Paris

(57:00):
can offer a young Black American as the years passed,
Bullard opens his own nightclub. He names it La Escurdrill.
In English, it means the Squadron. He also opens an
athletic club, a gymnasium where he can train the next
generation of boxers and so he can stay in shape himself.
Louis Armstrong was a particular fan of his gym, and
for Bollard it was a spot for him to fight,

(57:22):
but not to make war, to throw punches and stay sharp,
but for the fight that he always had to expect. Meanwhile,
Bullard's growing suspicion that the French will once again have
to go to war with the Germans. It turns out
to be accurate when the Second World War finally erupts
across Europe in all of its bloody horror. It is
motivated by the Nazis plans for slaughter and genocide. The

(57:45):
Nazi blitz comes fast. Eugene Bullard escapes the city he
loves and he signs up to once again volunteer to
fight for France.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Now he is.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
A middle aged veteran forty four years of age. He
signs up to serve with the fifty first Infantry. Being
that he was a conscientious objector against the war in Vietnam,
a man who received his own official deferral from the
draft board. I have to ask my pop what he
thinks about Bullard's choice to volunteer once again for the
obscenity of war.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
I didn't see where you could have a choice when
your nation is attacked. He had been living in France
for twenty four years, which is over half of his life.
As a resident Frenchman. He had two choices. He could
run from the fight or join the fight. And you
know that's not much of a choice if you had
any heart. And when your homeless attack, you have you

(58:35):
can't run from your home. You got to defend it.
So I was proud of him, especially in the condition
he was in, because he got beat up pretty good
in the First War.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
In June of nineteen forty, he's ordered to defend a
series of French cities, and just like in the First War,
Bullard is grievously injured on the battlefield. An exploding artillery
shell knocks him across the street and against a wall.
His boxer's fitness is the only thing that saves him.
His back is badly hurt. He's eventually released from service

(59:06):
and told to flee France. The Nazis are on their way,
and with the Nazis there is no hope the Bullard
will be spared. If captured. Bullard now must endure a
punishing forced retreat alone. He heads to Bordeaux, and from
there he heads south for Spain in the vain hope
he can make it to the Portuguese coast and catch
a boat back to America.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
See how that the oldest line place worse than your
home is the Nazis. Only way he could be chased
out of France is by an uglier force than what
was back here.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
During his escape from the Nazis, Bullard is aided to
safety thanks to who he is, not that he's a
black man or an American, not as many identities, but
rather because of who he is as an individual. For instance,
he runs into a former military comrade, the officer recognizes him,
he helps him get a US passport, making it possible

(01:00:02):
for Bullard to get the hell out of France. Now
some might call that good luck. Not my pops, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Call it good luck. It's good fortune because he has
shared himself with everybody he's ever met, So when something bad,
that's happening to him, the fact that the existence of
so many people in so many places he has helped
the eyes on his side that he'll run into one
of them, and that's what keeps happening still.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
The journey is a test of endurance. No longer in
the skies, Bullard now must ride a bike out of France.
When the bike eventually fails, he walks. His back is
painting him the entire time. He eventually makes it to
the Spanish border, where he runs into another old French
foreign legion comrade, working now as a Spanish customs officer.

(01:00:50):
He helps him across the border and takes Bullard to
enjoy a fine meal together. Fit to be Bullard's last
meal with a comrade in Europe, it is a life
nourishing goodbye. Bullard continues on to Portugal. Within days he
finds passage on a steamship, the SS Manhattan. He's part
of a desperate wave of American refugees to evacuate Europe

(01:01:10):
just before the Nazis fully take control. The painful irony
for Bullard is how despite all that he did, and
all of his bravery and all of his service overseas.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Back to America's His first experience was bigotry.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Eugene Bullard walks down the gangplank of the ship. There
is a man with a clipboard there to help the
war veterans, give them a little money, get them a
place to stay, set them up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
With a job.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
The soldiers are returning volunteers like Bullard, since it's July
nineteen forty and America will not officially enter World War
II for another year and a half. When Bullard tells
the man his name, he's informed he's not on the
list and there's no assistance for him. Luckily, another soldier,
a fellow pilot, recognizes Bullard and is able to give

(01:01:56):
him a little pocket money to ease his re entry
to the US, and so does the man.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Holding the clipboard.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Bullard's story makes me burn with one question, actually more
than one question, multiple questions. One why be a bigot?

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Two?

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
What benefit do biggots get out of their bigotry? Three?

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Why do they prefer bigotry rather than celebrate a war hero,
a brave American, the sort of man that books are
written about and movies are made about if they're white.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
These people people like gross part of him as a
thinking person, a part of his brain has to know
that nothing he's saying is true.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Actions follow thoughts, and thoughts are motivated by one's beliefs.
So how can you change someone's beliefs in their own superiority.
I mean, we've tried it for centuries.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
It's a madness because bigotry itself is a madness to
believe that superiority occurs in nature. It's contrary to nature.
So when people are claiming it, they have to come
up with a set of beliefs and things that would
support that shit. I think they did with slavery, the
all the shit they met black people in slavery, they
knew they were making it up, put itself in textbooks,

(01:03:08):
they put it in bibles. Then they'd go get the
book and bring it out to prove what they said.
And they put this shit into the book in the
first place.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
You know what, forget the bigots. What of Eugene Bullard.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I felt sorry for him because he had been living
as a free man in Paris, unfettered, in alive, and
he came back here and he had to take a
job running an elevator only because he was black.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Once Eugene Bollard returns home to the US. He makes
a new home for himself in New York, specifically Harlem
and a Touch. Ironically, he now has to wear a
new uniform, that of an elevator operator. The closest he
can get to the skies now is, however, high up
the top floor of the building is. Racism has grounded
him once more. But Eugene Bullard is a free man,

(01:03:53):
one who lives on his own terms regardless, and nothing
can deny or take away his time in France.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
The reason I admire him is I feel the same way.
I've never let anybody define me as anything but a
free man.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
So ultimately, yes, it does matter that Eugene Bullard was
black because others make it matter to him. It was
something he had to overcome, and he did. As MLK
would say, we shall overcome well decades earlier, Eugene Bullard
did exactly that, and we should respect him for the

(01:04:27):
content of his character.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
That's why it was all blood runs red, That's all
he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Eugene Bullard attempted to tell his own story. He wrote
of his life up until the year nineteen forty one.
He wrote a whole autobiography, but the book went unpublished,
and then he lived for another two decades, which includes
other brushes with history, one notably involving Paul Robeson. Thankfully,
in twenty nineteen, the book All Blood Runs Red, based

(01:04:54):
on his unpublished autobiography, was printed as well. There is
a more scholastic treatment, a book entitled Eugene Bullard, Black
Expatriot in jazz Age Paris. I definitely recommend that one,
and thanks to both books, Bullard's life story is now
documented and we're all made better by his example of
a life dedicated to being free.

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
Zaren once again, so great to have you and your
dad chopping it up here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Pop's killing it. What's the next episode?

Speaker 5 (01:05:29):
Get it into production.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
I'm gonna actually talk to him again. I'm bringing a
man to talk about Louis Armstrong and Richard Nixon, so
I think you will get to hear him opine about
how a vice president could smuggle pot fantastic. Did you
happen to cast this one while you were writing it?

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
This was an interesting one because it goes all over
the place.

Speaker 6 (01:05:48):
Who's your Bullard?

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
That's the main question, Okay, Eugene Boullerd. I thought he
had both the soul and then obviously he's been in
fight films.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Michael B.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
It just seemed like the perfect fits, right, you know,
if you can play in the Creed films, and obviously
he knows boxing, and then I think he just has
the soulfulness and you believe in him. So boom Eugene
Bullard for me, for his dad, big Ox. I was
thinking Idris Elba, he can do an American accent. He's
got the size. You feel him, You're like, oh man,
And if anybody like you know, tried to put a
spike in Idris Elba's head, I think the audience is

(01:06:16):
going to be immediately on his side, like, oh yeah,
mess him up.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Interest.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
So then the other one, doctor Gross, I thought Tim Robbins.
I just felt right, you know, like tall actor, kind
of like to give him a beard, maybe like a
small tight beard, like a Freudian beard. Anyway, Josephine Baker
Rihanna seemed like that's just a natural fit for Bricktop.
I was thinking Regina King. I thought she could kill
it in that role. For LANs to use, this was
a tough one. But I thought Michael Ealy, that light

(01:06:40):
eyed actor. I thought he could be good, right, Louis Armstrong.
Another difficult one. I thought, finally David Oyolowell. They played
doctor King in Selma. I thought he would be able
to right, Yeah, And then finally Ernest Hemingway. This one
was also difficult. But I think you dye the hair,
you tell him, have fun with it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Jesse Plemmons, Jesse Plemmons in anything. I'm sorry, Jesse.

Speaker 6 (01:07:01):
You just saying Jesse Plemmons as Ernest Hemingway, And I'm like,
I'm watching this movie.

Speaker 5 (01:07:07):
See I'm telling you, this feels like a prestige Apple
TV show. Let's go, Let's just get you in the
room pitching this to the right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
People call it all blood runs red Boom, you got there,
You go, Hollywood Free gift. Story of a citizen of
the World. By the way, I was just in France
and I got to say what he described, that feeling
of being treated as a human being was still true.
I went over there and it was astounding. I did
to tell my wife about it because I'm like, look,
do you see this? People like normally when I walk
around in public, it's like a shark in a school

(01:07:35):
of fish. There's like the bubble of no space or right.
It's just like open water and then surrounding fish. That's
how I moved through the world. Over there, people are
bumping into me, people are stepping on my feet. I'm like,
this is amazing. I'm a whole human being. There's no
fear in their eyes. So I loved it so just
I had to have my Bullard moment too.

Speaker 5 (01:07:53):
Well, that moment of your dad telling you for the
first time that his dream was to go over to France.
That's my favorite part of the episode.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Yeah, he never told me that, So I.

Speaker 6 (01:08:02):
Also just love imagine being talented enough to be a boxer,
a musician and also an aviator and just good at
all three things.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Yeah, he's a great, inspiring triple threat.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
Very special episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Today's episode was written.

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
By Zaren Burnett. Our producer is Josh Fisher. Our story
editors are Marisa.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Brown and Ryan Murdoch.

Speaker 5 (01:08:34):
Editing and sound design by Chris Childs and Josh Fisher.
Additional editing by Emily Meredoth, Mixing and mastering by Beheath Frasier.
Original music by Alis McCoy. Voice actors are Jonathan Washington
and Chris Childs. Research in fact checking by Zarn Burnette
and Austin Thompson. Show logo by Lucy Quintonia. Our executive

(01:08:57):
producer is Jason English. If you'd like to email the show,
you can reach us at Very Special Episodes at gmail
dot com. Very Special Episodeisodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.