![]() ![]() īy 1915, Bullard was a machine gunner and saw combat on the Somme front in Picardy. On October 19, 1914, Bullard enlisted and was assigned to the 3rd Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion (R.M.L.E.), as foreign volunteers were allowed only to serve in the Foreign Legion. Main article: Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion Bullard during World War I He continued to box in Paris and also worked in a music hall until the start of World War I. As a result of that visit to Paris, he decided to settle in France. While in London, he trained under the then-famous boxer Dixie Kid who arranged for him to fight in Paris. Bullard arrived at Aberdeen, Scotland and made his way first to Glasgow and then London where he boxed and performed slapstick in the Freedman Pickaninnies, an African-American troupe. In 1912, he made his way to Norfolk, Virginia where he stowed away on the German freighter Marta Russ, hoping to escape racial discrimination. Because he was hard-working as a stable boy, young Bullard won the Turners' affection and was asked to ride as their jockey in the 1911 County Fair races. ĭisheartened that the Stanleys were not scheduled to return to the United Kingdom, Bullard found work with the Turner family in Dawson, Georgia. It was the Stanleys who told him how the racial barriers did not exist in Britain and reset his determination to now get to the United Kingdom. Stopping in Atlanta, he joined a British clan of gypsies known by the surname of Stanley and traveled throughout Georgia tending their horses and learning to race. When he reached his 11th birthday, Bullard ran away from home with the intent of getting to France. Despite this, Bullard became enamored with his father's stories of France where slavery had been abolished and blacks were treated the same as whites. Despite the rampant racism of Jim Crow-era Georgia, his father continued to voice the conviction that African-Americans had to maintain their dignity and self-respect in the face of the white prejudice. ĭuring his youth, he suffered the trauma of watching a white mob attempt to lynch his father over a workplace dispute. Bullard attended the 28th Street School in Columbus from 1901 to 1906 completing the 5th Grade. census records, and his father was born on a property owned by Wiley Bullard, a slave owning planter in Stewart County. His paternal ancestors had been enslaved in Georgia and Virginia according to U.S. "All Blood Runs Red", a carefully researched and well-written biography of Bullard by Phil Keith and Tom Clavin was published in 2019 by Hanover Square Press.īullard was born in Columbus, Georgia, the seventh of 10 children born to William (Octave) Bullard, a Black man from Stewart County, Georgia, and Josephine ("Yokalee") Thomas, a Black woman said to be of African American and Indigenous (Muscogee Creek) heritage. Also a boxer and a jazz musician, he was called "L'Hirondelle noire" in French (literally "Black Swallow"). Bullard was one of the few black combat pilots during World War I, along with William Robinson Clarke, a Jamaican who flew for the Royal Flying Corps, Domenico Mondelli from Italy, and Ahmet Ali Çelikten of the Ottoman Empire. Médaille commémorative de la guerre 1939–1945Įugene Jacques Bullard (born Eugene James Bullard Octo– October 12, 1961) was one of the first African American military pilots, although Bullard flew for France, not the United States.Médaille commémorative de la guerre 1914–1918.Croix du combattant volontaire 1914–1918.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |