Unsung Hero

An excerpt from OZY -

THE FIRST BLACK FIGHTER PILOT
By Jack Doyle

You never know who you’re sharing an elevator with — and back when Rockefeller Center still had elevator operators, it was easy to ignore the elderly Black man in the corner. Neither Eugene Bullard nor his neat uniform commanded the same attention as the 1950s Manhattan elites who shared his little space every evening.

But little did they know that they were sharing a lift with an American who had been smack in the middle of the most dramatic twists and turns of the 20th century. Bullard was a boxer, World War I fighter pilot, Paris nightclub owner and World War II resistance fighter. He escaped the Gestapo and was beaten by police at a civil-rights demonstration. But even for many years after his death, his legacy remained that of an unnoticed, forgotten elevator operator.

Many details of Bullard’s life remain shrouded in myth, some of which was his own making. And who can blame him? He was born in rural Georgia to a large, poor Black family, and the odds were stacked against young Eugene. His family struggled to support themselves and, by Bullard’s recollection, faced violence with terrifying frequency. A lynch mob killed his older brother, Hector, and Eugene nearly lost his life on more than one occasion to racist attacks.

http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-first-black-fighter-pilot/67003?utm_source=weeklydose&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12292017&variable=e3bf1057d4e3c0988a79ae4bce515610