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Eugene Bullard, Black Expatriate in Jazz-Age Paris

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I had earlier learned of some of Eugene Bullard's exploits, but Craig Lloyd's book spotlights an endless list of amazing achievements that seem unbelievable for any man to accomplish in just one lifetime. It's a shame Bullard's life has been up to now unexplored and uncelebrated. Hopefully this extremely well-researched biography will fix that.

Excellent book from the world's leading authority on one of the most remarkable black Americans in history. Bullard's story is barely known because he was black in an age where US racism was all pervasive. Pre-dating the celebrated Tuskagee airmen by a generation, and the grand son of a slave, Bullard blazed a trail in World War 1 as a fighter pilot for the French, before being injured as a soldier in World War 2, and returning to the USA where he ended his life as a lift operator in NYC. In Paris between the world wars, Bullard married into the French aristocracy, had three kids (Josephine Baker was god mother to one), was a band leader and ran his own club.

Georgia Professor Craig Lloyd's incredibly detailed research (exhaustively footnoted here) places Bullard's own journal, 'All Blood Runs Red', into vivid and accurate historical context. Anyone interested in the history of the USA, France, racism or aviation will be enthralled - a wonderful read.

Eugene Bullard- Black Expatriate in Jazz Age Paris

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Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia, the son of a former slave, on October 9, 1895. By the time he was twelve years old he had run away from the plantation his family sharecropped, stowing away on a ship bound for Europe. Historian Craig Lloyd, professor emeritus at Columbus State University does a masterful job of explaining the era and circumstances in which Bullard was born and takes the reader along for his journey. Arriving first in England, the young boy is amazed to discover the color of his skin does not define his place in the world. He became a minstrel show performer, and much to his delight Eugene learns that in Europe, unlike the South, when the music ends he is welcome to live where and how he chooses.

So begins Craig Lloyds brilliant biography of one of histories most enigmatic figures. While many early aviation enthusiasts might be able to recall that the Lafayette Escadrille squadron of American pilots who flew for France included a young African American, few would be able to tell the full tale in as vivid a detail. By his late teens Eugene Bullard has formed ties with a community of expatriate African Americans who have discovered a place with little of the prejudice found at home. He is befriended by a well known boxer called the Dixie Kid, another expat, and taught to box. Winning many of his bouts he relocates to Paris and is a well known figure when the First World War erupts in 1914.

By then Bullard has grown into as a man determined to live on his own terms. He is fluent in a couple of languages, and while he seldom starts a brawl he never backs away from one either if insulted. Bullard immediately joins the Foreign Legion and after training is thrown into the caldron of trench warfare. A machine gunner, he is wounded twice at Verdun. On convalescent leave a French officer recommends him for aviation training. Bullard passes through the difficult course and makes fast friends with several American pilots, including future ace Ted Parsons. But Eugene Bullards flying career however is shortlived. He flies only twenty combat missions for his adopted homeland before encountering the same Jim Crow ear racism he tried to leave behind.

Dr. Edmund Gros, one of the key organizers of the Lafayette Flying Corps has been given the task of vetting French serving American pilots as they are merged into the US Air Service. Lloyd's account tells of Dr. Gros' behind the scenes blocking of Bullard's transfer, and how the 'patriotic' American doctor gave false testimony against Bullard to French officials that described the 22 year old pilot as a undisciplined assailant and a person of poor character. Gros letters recommended he be returned to the trenches and Bullard never flew again. Gros' prejudice against a young man he met only a handful of times is explained by Professor Lloyd as he describes newly arrived American officers aghast people of color welcomed in France and white French women freely dancing and drinking with African American men.

When the Lafayette Flying Corps reunion groups snubbed him for several years after the war, his flying became point of pride for him, but Eugene Bullard's life postwar was even more fascinating than his flying days. He married, had children and ran a series of night clubs in Paris that introduced jazz to post war Paris. When American musicians traveled to France, Eugene Bullard was someone they turned to for both his language fluency and his understanding of French society. When Germany invaded in 1940 the 45 year old Bullard rushed to rejoin his old unit and after being wounded again, made a harrowing escape to America, settling down in New York.

Never one to shy away from a struggle against injustice, in his latter years Eugene Bullard became involved in the early civil rights movement. He also finally enjoyed some recognition for his unique place in early aviation. More than just a footnote in history, Eugene Bullard's story is about an individuals daily battle for respect and freedom. Craig Lloyd's compelling biography of this true individual and the time he lived in, reminds the reader that sometimes that struggle is life itself.

A must read for any aviation buff who's ever wondered if there was a black pilot in WWI, and how he lived that life is truly an extraordinary saga.

Eugene Bullard was an African American man who was born in 1895 in Columbus, Georgia, and lived a really fascinating live. After leaving the U.S. in 1912 to escape the existing suffocating racist oppression, he stayed first in Britain, and then settled in France where he lived as a boxer, entertainer, jazz drummer, was a war hero in the trenches in Verdun, and become the first African American combat pilot in 1917 (in French service: the U.S. would allow black combat pilots only in 1941...). After the war, like so many other African Americans, he remained in Europe. He become a well known entrepeneur in the Parisian night club life during the 20s and 30s. At the German invasion in 1940, and after a brief stint in the French army, he went back to the U.S. where he died in New York in 1961. Revered in France as a national hero during is life, and completely unknown in his country until more than twenty years after his death, the life of this extraordinary man has in this book a much deserved homage and, probably, its definitive biography.

A very well documented biography on a genuine American and French hero. Unfortunately he was born during the Jim Crow era in the south (even though the constitution which was written over 100 years before his birth mentions "all men are created equal", this did not include any non-caucasian's or women, did it? Did not use the word minority since it denotes less than some majority, there are more non-caucasian's in the world anyway and what is really meant by that word is just that, non-caucasian. I find it odd that the USA was founded by European descendants like the English, French and even though the country prided itself on it's progresive nature, it did not include equality, even though Europe itself did not practice racial discrimination). He was born the seventh child of a large family and his father always had a premonition of a very distinguished future for him and let it be known to him when he was young. Talks about his travel through the south after he left home and was told early by his father of a country (France) where all men are truly free. This had a profound effect on him because he eventually made it to France via England first.

He began his livelyhood as a theatre performer and boxer; two opposing and similar avocations. He joined the military and became the first Black American and Black Frenchman aviator and was awarded medals for his bravery, dedication and skills. Very well liked, he had a contagious personality and started working at a famous Paris club later in life and eventually became a club owner himself. He met the famous of the day like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Bricktop and many others. This biography also got me interested in Jazz age Paris to request both autobiographies of Hughes and Bricktop.

Slowly (too slowly) more is being known about this man and his acomplishments and contributions to the human race.

You won't be able to put it down. Jack Johnson's autobiography "In the Ring and Out" is another good bio of that era too.

Eugene Bullard is not a house-hold name in the US, but he should be. It is not because he was the son of a poor sharecropper from Columbus, Georgia nor his escape from Jim Crow on a tramp steamer to Scotland. It is what he did with himself and his life in the face of relentless American racial discrimination when he got to Europe. It is because of his love for justice; his desire to defend the French values of democracy and liberty; his valor at Verdun; his bravery in air combat; his armed defense of his little daughters and France against the Nazis invasion. Recipient of 15 military awards including the Croix de Guerre, he was much only later promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the USAF - a position he was denied in WWI because he was black.

This book is the most thorough and well-research biography of his life, backing up its key assertions with multiple references and explaining the controversies with even-handedness based on historical texts.

You should buy this book, America.

It's always interesting the struggles Black people go through to achieve their goals. This is another story of the ups and downs even with great talent.

This is an important story that needs to be more widely told. The writing style is thick and seems more carefully academic than it needs to be. It might be a better fictional novel in order to get the important points across with regard to the continuing racism of the US and how it even pervaded France from US tourists through the racism encountered when he returned to the US. Regardless, it is an incredible story worth reading and I highly recommend it. I also recommend reading Queen Bess about the first black female pilot, Bessie Coleman.

This book gives you the opportunity to get a feeling of what your life may have been like living in the Jim Crow era of Georgia. My name is Bullard and I am a white genealogist. Eugene Bullard was the son of ex-slaves that were owned by a family named Bullard.

It is fabulous to see a black person rise out of impossible circumstances to become an expatriate combat pilot in the French Air Force during World War I. Jazz and Blues is what I listen to every day and the Jazz story in this book is very interesting to me.