Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you missed in history class, a production
Speaker 1: of I heart radio. Hello and welcome to the PODCAST.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Vie Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today is
Speaker 1: the second part of our two parter on Eugene Jacques Bullard.
Speaker 1: In part one we talked about his upbringing, his leaving
Speaker 1: the US to go to Europe and his becoming the
Speaker 1: first black American combat pilot. Uh. There were a handful
Speaker 1: of other black combat pilots, but not from the United States. Um,
Speaker 1: so that is the first that he is recognized as. Uh.
Speaker 1: He had a whole long life beyond that, though, and
Speaker 1: that is what we're going to talk about today. After
Speaker 1: World War One ended, Eugene Jacques Bullard returned to Paris.
Speaker 1: He was a war hero thanks to his infantry service
Speaker 1: in the Front Foreign Legion and Hundred and Seventieth Infantry
Speaker 1: Regiment of the French army and his service as a
Speaker 1: combat pilot in the Lafayette Esquadrille, which was a unit
Speaker 1: of mostly American pilots who flew for France. Before the war,
Speaker 1: he had been a boxer and a performer in various
Speaker 1: Vaudeville and MINSTREL troops. And while he wanted to get
Speaker 1: back to boxing, he also needed to make ends meet
Speaker 1: while he got back into boxing condition and continued to
Speaker 1: recover from a serious injury to his leg that he
Speaker 1: had gotten during his service. So he decided to become
Speaker 1: a musician, specifically a jazz drummer. This sounds maybe a
Speaker 1: little counterintuitive. I know if I needed to go make money,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a jazz drummer. Probably would not
Speaker 1: be at the top of the list. But jazz really
Speaker 1: surged in popularity in France towards the end of World
Speaker 1: War One. One big reason was the three sixty nine
Speaker 1: regimental army band, also known as the Harlem hellfighters. Marching
Speaker 1: and leading this band was black musician and composer James
Speaker 1: Reese Europe, who had recruited the band's members, including traveling
Speaker 1: to Puerto Rico and recruiting eighteen Afro Puerto Ricans from there.
Speaker 1: The Harlem Hellfighters Band arrived in Europe in nineteen eighteen
Speaker 1: and introduced audiences all over Europe to jazz, specifically to
Speaker 1: jazz performed by black musicians, not kind of jazz derived
Speaker 1: from Black People's music and performed by white people, which
Speaker 1: was what most people's experience had been so far. Most
Speaker 1: people who had been performing things like ragtime and other
Speaker 1: musical styles that evolved into jazz in Europe had also
Speaker 1: been white before this point. At the same time, things
Speaker 1: were shifting in neighborhoods around Paris. MONMASCA had been established
Speaker 1: as a center of entertainment, culture and art, home to
Speaker 1: Bohemians Avant Garde artists in a thriving nightlife. This is
Speaker 1: come up on various episodes of our show before, including
Speaker 1: our episode on French artists, Marie Laurence, who hosted various
Speaker 1: people connected with the cubist movement in her Montmartre apartment
Speaker 1: prior to World War One. During the war, artists and
Speaker 1: performers started moving from Montmartre to Montparnasse on the other
Speaker 1: side of the sin, and many of the cabarets and
Speaker 1: music halls in Montmartre closed down. A lot of these
Speaker 1: spaces were small and they were very well suited to
Speaker 1: performances by jazz ensembles. So as the war ended, the
Speaker 1: demand for jazz music combined with these newly available nightclubs
Speaker 1: and concert halls to bring a thriving black community to Montmartre.
Speaker 1: Some of these new clubs and restaurants and other venues
Speaker 1: were owned by white people and others were black owned.
Speaker 1: In addition to people like Eugene Bullard who were already
Speaker 1: living in Europe, performers from the US started coming to
Speaker 1: France hoping to find a home in this burgeoning music scene.
Speaker 1: There were also black people from France's colonies in Africa
Speaker 1: and the Caribbeans, some of whom had been sent to
Speaker 1: France to study in one of Paris's universities. A number
Speaker 1: of factors in the US were a part of this
Speaker 1: influx of black people, including black musicians, to Paris. Some
Speaker 1: people were hoping to escape from widespread racism, which became
Speaker 1: increasingly violent after the war. We talked about this in
Speaker 1: our Harlem Hell Fighters Episode that was a Saturday classic
Speaker 1: in and in our episode on the Red Summer of
Speaker 1: Nineteen nineteen that came out in June of nineteen. The
Speaker 1: Eighteenth Amendment to the U S Constitution went into effect
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty, banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages,
Speaker 1: and that prompted people whose livelihoods had been built around
Speaker 1: performing in nightclubs and bars to leave. Other black American
Speaker 1: performers who worked and established businesses in France during this
Speaker 1: era included Josephine Baker, Ada Smith, also known as brick top,
Speaker 1: and Adelaide Hall. So even though he was pretty new
Speaker 1: to being a drummer, there was enough demand for musicians
Speaker 1: in Paris that bullard started getting gigs pretty quickly. He
Speaker 1: joined the House band at a club owned by Joe Zelli,
Speaker 1: who was born in Italy and immigrated to the US
Speaker 1: before returning to Europe around nineteen ten Zelli was nicknamed
Speaker 1: King of cabaret keepers and ran enormously popular clubs in Molmarch.
Speaker 1: Bullard was hired to play the drums and to work
Speaker 1: as the club's artistic director, booking acts to perform at
Speaker 1: the club and also hiring and managing other employees. As
Speaker 1: a side note, Ernest Hemingway's novel the Sun also rises
Speaker 1: is based on his experiences in Europe, particularly Paris and Pamplona,
Speaker 1: and there is some speculation that an unnamed black drummer
Speaker 1: playing at Zell's in the book is in fact Eugene Bullard. So,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in part one, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons Bullard had left the United States was to try
Speaker 1: to escape from racism. He had heard that in Europe
Speaker 1: racism wasn't as prevalent as in the US. He had
Speaker 1: described his arrival in Europe as a relief. He no
Speaker 1: longer felt that he was continually at risk or just
Speaker 1: faced with ongoing hostility from white people. He had definitely
Speaker 1: experienced discrimination. We talked about a lot of ways that
Speaker 1: he had in part one, but it just wasn't on
Speaker 1: the scale of what he had lived through in the
Speaker 1: United States. This started to shift a little bit after
Speaker 1: World War One in Paris, though a number of factors
Speaker 1: had shaped racial attitudes in France before this point. France's
Speaker 1: colonial empire included territory in the Caribbean, North Africa and Asia,
Speaker 1: and there was widespread racial prejudice against people of color
Speaker 1: from all of these colonized areas. The actions of the
Speaker 1: French colonial naments in these areas could also be appalling. Uh,
Speaker 1: we acknowledge that, but that's also kind of beyond the
Speaker 1: scope of what we're talking about here today. At the
Speaker 1: same time, the number of people from any of these
Speaker 1: areas in France was relatively small. Many were the children
Speaker 1: of the most affluent and elite who had been sent
Speaker 1: to France to study, and they were perceived more as
Speaker 1: exotic outsiders. So that was the case before World War One.
Speaker 1: The first world war brought larger numbers of people of
Speaker 1: Color into France and also into Europe more broadly. We've
Speaker 1: already mentioned the two hundred thousand Black Americans who served
Speaker 1: in Europe during the war. France also recruited more than
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand soldiers from its colonial territories, including from
Speaker 1: West Africa, Morocco and Madagascar. Some of these people were
Speaker 1: recruited by force. Although African soldiers often served in Africa,
Speaker 1: some of them also served in continental Europe. The French
Speaker 1: government brought in laborers from their colonial territories as well
Speaker 1: and contract workers from China. Incidents of racist violence and
Speaker 1: xenophobic violenced against foreign workers from other parts of Europe
Speaker 1: really started to escalate in France starting around nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: after the war, France saw some of the trends we've
Speaker 1: talked about in the context of the United States, as
Speaker 1: returning white soldiers found that they were now competing with
Speaker 1: people of color the jobs that they had previously held.
Speaker 1: As large black communities settled in places like Montmatre, this
Speaker 1: made them targets as well. Adding to all of this
Speaker 1: were white American G I S who did not return
Speaker 1: to the US immediately or who came back to France,
Speaker 1: and they pushed for the same systems of segregation and
Speaker 1: white supremacy that they were used to at home. Of course,
Speaker 1: all of this effected Eugene Bullard. In May of Nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: He stood up at a cafe and accidentally bumped into
Speaker 1: a white officer behind him, and this led to an
Speaker 1: altercation in which the officer knocked bullard unconscious. Bullard went
Speaker 1: to the hospital and was released the next day. And
Speaker 1: then somehow this turned into a weird case of mistaken
Speaker 1: identity in which Parisian newspapers reported that the Dixie kid
Speaker 1: had been killed by a white American army officer. For
Speaker 1: a refresh from part, one black American boxer, Aaron Lester Brown,
Speaker 1: was known as the Dixie Kid. Some reporters seemed to
Speaker 1: have thought Bullard was the dixie kid. There's just the
Speaker 1: whole very irritating confusion of two different black men and
Speaker 1: kind of conflating them in this reporting. I have this
Speaker 1: vision in my head of how this happened, which is
Speaker 1: that somebody said that black American boxer got knocked out. Oh,
Speaker 1: of course that was that one. Yeah, it's when people
Speaker 1: started saying that Bullard was the Dixie kid that I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: that those were two different people. Now, Um, and this
Speaker 1: is an aside, they reported that he had been killed,
Speaker 1: not just yeah, they reported that he had been killed
Speaker 1: and not just entered. There was just a very inaccurate uh.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. This was not an isolated incident. One
Speaker 1: of the sources used to this episode described Bullard as
Speaker 1: never passing up the chance to punch a racist. Bullard
Speaker 1: filed a libel suit against the French edition of the
Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune, which had published an article about an incident
Speaker 1: in which bullard punched a man who was subjecting him
Speaker 1: to a racist tirade. The Tribunes reporting was false and defamatory,
Speaker 1: claiming that Bullard was armed with brass knuckles, which he
Speaker 1: was not, and implying that his transfer from the infantry
Speaker 1: to aviation was motivated by cowardice. The article also falsely
Speaker 1: claimed that, once Bullard was trained as a pilot, that
Speaker 1: he had refused to fly. The French edition of the
Speaker 1: Tribune was forced to print bullard's rebuttal of this story
Speaker 1: on Ma and the Chicago defender reprinted that rebuttal in
Speaker 1: the United States. Yea, his rebuttal clearly spelled out that
Speaker 1: he was in fact a war hero and that their
Speaker 1: reporting of him was racist and faults. So that happened
Speaker 1: actually not that long after Bullard's boxing career ended. He
Speaker 1: had taken a six month break from his job at
Speaker 1: Zeli's when he got a contract to box and Alexandria, Egypt.
Speaker 1: He was badly injured in a match on a nine
Speaker 1: and really couldn't box anymore after that and for the
Speaker 1: next couple of decades his career was focused mostly on
Speaker 1: music and clubs, and we will get to that after
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. On July see Eugene Jack Bullard
Speaker 1: married Marcell El Eugenie Henriette straman. Sometimes she has described
Speaker 1: as a countess. Bullard said as much in his autobiography,
Speaker 1: but she was not a countess. Her parents ran a
Speaker 1: successful grocery business and she was a Modiste. They were
Speaker 1: I mean they did well for themselves, but they were
Speaker 1: not fancy rich people in the way that she has
Speaker 1: described sometimes. While bullard seems to have had exaggerated the
Speaker 1: straman family's financial situation. He also said that the difference
Speaker 1: in their economic background raised a lot more eyebrows than
Speaker 1: the fact that he was black and she was white.
Speaker 1: They went on to have three children together, jacqueline in
Speaker 1: four Eugene Junior in ninety six and Lolita in n
Speaker 1: Eugene junior sadly died of pneumonia while he was still
Speaker 1: a baby. Bullard kept working as a drummer and as
Speaker 1: artistic director at Zeli's. In he bought his own nightclub,
Speaker 1: Legrand Duke. Although it was a small club, it became
Speaker 1: incredibly popular with regulars including people like Ernest Hemingway and
Speaker 1: F Scott Fitzgerald. Louis Armstrong and fats waller performed there,
Speaker 1: as did Josephine Baker from time to time. She also
Speaker 1: babysat for Bullard's daughter, Jacqueline. Lankston Hughes also worked at
Speaker 1: La Clan Duke as a dishwasher and Cook while living
Speaker 1: in Paris at the age of twenty two. The same
Speaker 1: year that Bullard bought Le Grand Duke, a memorial to
Speaker 1: the Lafayette Flying Corps was dedicated near Paris. This monument
Speaker 1: was meant to recognize all the members of the Lafayette Escadrille,
Speaker 1: as well as Americans who flew with other French units.
Speaker 1: They were all kind of loosely grouped together in this
Speaker 1: informal designation of the Lafayette Flying Corps. This memorial still
Speaker 1: exists today. It serves as the final resting place for
Speaker 1: most of the American pilots who were killed while flying
Speaker 1: for France and World War One. Those who were missing
Speaker 1: in action or who are buried elsewhere are represented there
Speaker 1: with empty tombs. Even though Bullard had been part of
Speaker 1: the Lafayette Escadrille, he was not even told that dedication
Speaker 1: was happening. He was not on the guest list. One
Speaker 1: of the other pilots, Ted Parsons, came by the Grand
Speaker 1: Duke and took him to the dedication, which was on
Speaker 1: July four. Bullard also discovered that his name had been
Speaker 1: left off the monument's list of pilots. He considered this
Speaker 1: to be truly egregious, especially since the monument did list
Speaker 1: people who had never actually flown. One was Dr Edmund Gross,
Speaker 1: who was involved with the creation and management of the
Speaker 1: Lafayette Esquadrille but was not a pilot. And who apparently
Speaker 1: kept Bullard's name from being included. Yeah, there's a long
Speaker 1: documented back and forth of Bullard trying to get his
Speaker 1: name included with all the other names of the men
Speaker 1: he had flown with. After the Great Depression started, the
Speaker 1: Grand Duke started to struggle financially and eventually bullard sold it.
Speaker 1: After that he opened a smile dollar bar which he
Speaker 1: named the Les Gradule Club. It's a little weird to
Speaker 1: have the and also the La Pastro from the French name.
Speaker 1: That that's how I kept finding it referenced. Bullard also
Speaker 1: started his own athletic club where he worked as a
Speaker 1: massage therapist and a personal trainer. Some of the same
Speaker 1: people who had played at the Grand Duke came to
Speaker 1: the Athletic Club for exercise or relaxation, and it catered
Speaker 1: to a range of well known Parisians and expatriates. Bullard
Speaker 1: also arranged musical performances for various charities and philanthropic events,
Speaker 1: including greeting American mothers whose sons had been killed in
Speaker 1: action during the war when they arrived in France to
Speaker 1: visit their graves or to attend memorials. In nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: five Jean and Marcel divorced, and this is another place
Speaker 1: where his account of their relationship doesn't really line up
Speaker 1: with the historical record. He claimed that she inherited a
Speaker 1: lot of money after her father's death and that she
Speaker 1: wanted him to give up working so that they could
Speaker 1: live in luxury. He did not want to be a
Speaker 1: kept man and he refused, which ended their marriage. He
Speaker 1: wrote it because they were both Catholic, they never officially
Speaker 1: divorced and she died a few years later. They did
Speaker 1: officially divorced, though. That divorce was finalized on December five
Speaker 1: and unless her father had also inherited money from someone
Speaker 1: else in the family or had some other money somewhere,
Speaker 1: like his estate as a Grosser, would not really have
Speaker 1: been enough to provide for a family to live the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives without working, especially because bullard made
Speaker 1: it sound like she kind of wanted them to be
Speaker 1: high society people. Marcel also did not die shortly after
Speaker 1: they split up. She lived until I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the harshest burn ever to just tell people your ex
Speaker 1: has passed. I'm sorry, Oh yeah, she's yead right here.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's really distressing to me is.
Speaker 1: It's not clear whether are his children knew that their
Speaker 1: mother was still living. It's it's it's a little vague.
Speaker 1: There is some speculation about why bullard would have fabricated
Speaker 1: such easily verifiable details in his autobiography. It is possible
Speaker 1: that he was trying to protect his daughters from some
Speaker 1: kind of speculation or maybe unpleasant information about himself or
Speaker 1: about their mother. He got custody after his daughters after
Speaker 1: the divorce, at which point they were nine and twelve
Speaker 1: and attending a convent boarding school. By the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: bullard's violent altercations with racists had expanded to including violent
Speaker 1: altercations with Nazis. That might be more of a refinement
Speaker 1: than an expansion, I don't know. One of them had
Speaker 1: been a client at his athletic club. Bullard had twenty
Speaker 1: one flags hanging in the gym that represented the nationalities
Speaker 1: of all its various members, and this client wanted him
Speaker 1: to add the Nazi flag. Bullard threw him out. He
Speaker 1: so had at least one altercation with German men out
Speaker 1: on the streets of Montmart eventually, Paris municipal detective George
Speaker 1: La planquet approached Bullard about gathering information from Germans and
Speaker 1: passing it to the French Military Intelligence Service, Le Diizzy
Speaker 1: M bureau. Bullard knew German pretty well. He had started
Speaker 1: to learn it aboard the Marta Ross when he originally
Speaker 1: left the US for Europe. Bullard was assigned to work
Speaker 1: with Cleopatra Terrier, also known as Kitty, who bullard had
Speaker 1: seen around the bar and who he had assumed was
Speaker 1: a sex worker. It turned out that she had started
Speaker 1: actively spying on Germans in an attempt to avenge the
Speaker 1: murder of her father by a German during World War One.
Speaker 1: Bullard started eavesdropping on German patrons at the bar and
Speaker 1: the athletic club and also striking up conversations with them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he and terrier worked together as a team at
Speaker 1: the bar. She would flirt and he would sort of
Speaker 1: play two stereotypes of black men as hapless or ignorant,
Speaker 1: and then they would pass everything they had learned back
Speaker 1: to the intelligence service. But other people noticed that Bullard
Speaker 1: was suddenly spending a lot more time talking to Germans
Speaker 1: and they grew suspicious of him. On July two nine,
Speaker 1: he was shot in the abdomen by Justin Peretti. Peretti
Speaker 1: was inebriated and thought that Bullard was spying for Germany,
Speaker 1: not spying on Germans for France. Peretti also accidentally shot
Speaker 1: himself during this attack. He survived. I think he accidentally
Speaker 1: shot himself in the buttocks, as you do. So bullard
Speaker 1: was immediately taken to the hospital and doctors initially did
Speaker 1: not think he would live. He did live, though, and
Speaker 1: he was released six days later. PERETTI's brothers apologized to
Speaker 1: bullard on his behalf and they bribed him not to
Speaker 1: press charges. They sort of framed this as wanting to
Speaker 1: compensate him for the at that his bar had to
Speaker 1: be closed. In the wake of all of this, it
Speaker 1: does not appear that Peretti was ever charged with anything.
Speaker 1: If he was, I was not able to find that out.
Speaker 1: After Germany invaded Poland on September one, ninety nine people
Speaker 1: started leaving Paris, especially Americans and others who were not
Speaker 1: from France, and we're worried about whether they'd be able
Speaker 1: to go home if they stayed. Bullard initially kept up
Speaker 1: his spy work and kept Les Caudrille Open to feed
Speaker 1: and entertain people, but eventually he had fewer and fewer patrons,
Speaker 1: and mandatory blackouts caused him to have to close up
Speaker 1: early every evening. He sold his car and he started
Speaker 1: focusing on making sure his friends who couldn't get out
Speaker 1: of Paris just had enough to eat. He would do
Speaker 1: the shopping with a hand cart that he made, buying
Speaker 1: whatever he could find an afford, and then the bar's
Speaker 1: cook would make it into a stew to feed as
Speaker 1: many people with it as possible. Once most of the
Speaker 1: people that Bullard knew were safely out of Paris, he
Speaker 1: closed up the bar and the athletic club. Wealthy American
Speaker 1: woman named June juet James invited him and his daughters
Speaker 1: to stay with her in new west of Paris, with
Speaker 1: bullard working as her chauffeur and waiter. At one point
Speaker 1: she was helping arrange a volunteer ambulance corps and hosted
Speaker 1: a dinner for potential funders and organizers. One of its
Speaker 1: guests was once again Dr Gross and, as we mentioned
Speaker 1: in part one, he had helped organize the American ambulance
Speaker 1: field service, probably why he was there. Bullard was wearing
Speaker 1: his dress uniform during this dinner and gross had expressed
Speaker 1: surprise that one of his medals was the Medai Milito,
Speaker 1: which was awarded for acts of bravery against an enemy force.
Speaker 1: Bullard responded, quote, Oh, I thought you kept all my records,
Speaker 1: just as you kept the scroll issued me by the
Speaker 1: French government, as it was to every member of the
Speaker 1: Flying Squadron. And then Bullard walked away, and this was
Speaker 1: the last time he and gross ever saw each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a scroll we mentioned in part one that he
Speaker 1: was supposed to get, and gross apparently never gave it
Speaker 1: to him. Sometime after this dinner, the intelligence service called
Speaker 1: Bullard back to Paris and he briefly tried to reopen
Speaker 1: the bar, but soon after that he decided to try
Speaker 1: to rejoin his old unit, the hundred and Seventie Infantry Regiment,
Speaker 1: which he had heard was fighting about a hundred miles
Speaker 1: east of Paris. Before he left, Kitty terrier promised him
Speaker 1: that she would keep his children safe. He seems to
Speaker 1: have really genuinely loved and doated on both of them.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Eugene's efforts to serve in
Speaker 1: World War Two after we have a quick sponsor break.
Speaker 1: When Eugene Jock Bullard decided to try to rejoin the
Speaker 1: French infantry. He was forty four and he spent day
Speaker 1: is going all around France, mostly on foot, as he
Speaker 1: tried to connect to the hundred and Seventieth Infantry, which
Speaker 1: he had served in before, or really to just any
Speaker 1: other units that he heard were fighting nearby. And what
Speaker 1: he encountered on the way was horrific. There were huge
Speaker 1: waves of starving refugees, villages that had been attacked and
Speaker 1: at one point a child standing next to the badly
Speaker 1: mutilated body of his mother. Bullard finally found a different unit,
Speaker 1: the fifty first infantry, in Orleans on June fifteenth. The
Speaker 1: major in command had also been an officer at Verdun,
Speaker 1: where Bullard had fought during World War One, and he
Speaker 1: accepted Bullard service and he assigned him to a machine
Speaker 1: gun company. Just three days later, an artillery shell exploded,
Speaker 1: killing eleven French soldiers and badly injuring Bullard, who was
Speaker 1: the only one of the group that was near this
Speaker 1: explosion to survive. The explosion threw him into a wall
Speaker 1: and he lived only because he kind of glanced off
Speaker 1: the wall at a angle rather than being thrown directly
Speaker 1: into it. But one of his vertebrae was fractured. Bullard
Speaker 1: did not want to give up at this point, but
Speaker 1: his commanding officer was worried about his safety. Beyond that
Speaker 1: of other soldiers, Bullard was a black man. He was
Speaker 1: a widely known hero from the First World War. He
Speaker 1: had been working in intelligence. There were understandable concerns about
Speaker 1: what would happen to him if the Nazis captured him
Speaker 1: and how news of his capture could affect the morale
Speaker 1: of other soldiers. So bullard was ordered to get to
Speaker 1: Spain and from there to go to the United States.
Speaker 1: Bullard spent a whole day on foot, at first using
Speaker 1: his rifle as a crutch and then abandoning that for
Speaker 1: a stick because he thought that the rifle might seem threatening.
Speaker 1: He got to a military hospital, which treated him as
Speaker 1: best they could and wrapped his bag to try to
Speaker 1: stabilize it. As he continued south. He got to be
Speaker 1: a Ritz not far from the Spanish border on June twenty.
Speaker 1: It four days after being injured. When bullard had left
Speaker 1: the United States. Almost three decades before, passports were not
Speaker 1: required for travel around Europe and most people just didn't
Speaker 1: have them. Although bullard had toured around a lot of
Speaker 1: Europe when he was a boxer. He had not gotten
Speaker 1: one at that point either, so when he tried to
Speaker 1: get passage to the United States, he had to try
Speaker 1: to prove who he really was. The console that beer
Speaker 1: it's questioned him and other people who knew him who
Speaker 1: happened to be passing through beerits as they tried to
Speaker 1: get out of Europe as well. So people were vouching
Speaker 1: for him and it was established that he was who
Speaker 1: said he was, that he really was from the United States.
Speaker 1: He was finally approved for us passport, but then he
Speaker 1: had to go back to Bordeaux to get it. Bullard
Speaker 1: was afraid of what would happen to his belongings if
Speaker 1: he was captured, so he left everything but the clothes
Speaker 1: he was wearing behind. American aviator R C Guarts, known
Speaker 1: as Craney, had also flown for France during World War One,
Speaker 1: shipped Bullard's belongings to the US for him care of
Speaker 1: Roger Baldwin at the A C L U offices in
Speaker 1: New York. Bullard went to Bordeaux, roughly one miles away
Speaker 1: by bicycle and then returned. His friend Charlie Levy was
Speaker 1: carrying refugees out of France across the Spanish border in
Speaker 1: an ambulance, and Bullard got a ride with him. Eugene
Speaker 1: Jacques Bullard finally got to Spain on July second nineteen
Speaker 1: forty and departed for the US ten days later. He
Speaker 1: arrived in New York harbor on July eight. Rooms had
Speaker 1: been arranged for all the American veterans of World War
Speaker 1: One who were on the ship with him, but not
Speaker 1: for him, who was the only black veteran on board.
Speaker 1: He was able to stay with an acquaintance he had
Speaker 1: known in Paris who had an apartment in New York,
Speaker 1: and to pick up all of his stuff from the
Speaker 1: A C L U office where it had been sent.
Speaker 1: Once it got there, bullard eventually moved into the predominantly
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican neighborhood of Spanish Harlem and he lived there
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. But he also spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in Lower Manhattan, which had a
Speaker 1: large French community. Among other things, bullard attended mass there,
Speaker 1: along with meetings of the Federation of French veterans of
Speaker 1: the Great War. He also received treatment for his spinal
Speaker 1: injury at a French hospital. After arriving in the US,
Speaker 1: Bullard also immediately started trying to get his daughters out
Speaker 1: of France. He worked with the Consulate and with William
Speaker 1: C bullet, who bullard had met while bullet was in
Speaker 1: Paris serving as ambassador to France. His daughters were also
Speaker 1: evacuated from France to Spain and they arrived in the
Speaker 1: United States on February three nine. Bullard tried to make
Speaker 1: ends meet through an assortment of odd jobs, starting with
Speaker 1: being a security guard. He also spent a lot of
Speaker 1: his time working with the France called MEM or France forever,
Speaker 1: which was the international arm of the Free France Movement.
Speaker 1: The Free France Movement supported Charles de Gaulle and the
Speaker 1: French government in exile in London, as well as French
Speaker 1: resistance efforts. Super Quick Recap here. After Germany defeated France,
Speaker 1: the French third republic was dissolved. In the French state
Speaker 1: that was established in its place was primarily run from
Speaker 1: the spot town of vichy. The vichy regime collaborated with
Speaker 1: the Nazis, while the free France movement continued to fight back.
Speaker 1: Bullard's work with free France included trying to recruit black
Speaker 1: pilots and airplane mechanics to serve in the free French forces.
Speaker 1: At this point, the US was already recruiting black people
Speaker 1: into the military, including pilots. The tuskegee airmen had been
Speaker 1: established that January. Bullard's thoughts aren't this aren't documented anywhere,
Speaker 1: but presumably he thought black people should have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to fight for France as part of an integrated unit,
Speaker 1: as he had done, rather than fighting for the US
Speaker 1: and a segregated one. We've also talked in some of
Speaker 1: our episodes about the military service of black people during
Speaker 1: this time, of the idea that people were fighting for
Speaker 1: a country that was not reading them as equal citizens,
Speaker 1: and Bullard may have been motivated by the idea that
Speaker 1: there was more equality in France and his experience than
Speaker 1: in the United States. Bullard also traveled around the US,
Speaker 1: visiting family members he had not seen in decades and
Speaker 1: introducing them to his daughters. This included making a trip
Speaker 1: to Columbus, Georgia in nineteen six, and he was continually
Speaker 1: confronted with how different the US was than the way
Speaker 1: he had lived in Paris. He was invited to a
Speaker 1: dinner honoring members of the French Foreign Legion in Nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two, but he got an anonymous letter warning him
Speaker 1: not to come because, quote, in the states, white and
Speaker 1: colored don't mix at social functions. During the peak skill
Speaker 1: riots in nineteen forty nine, someone spit on him and
Speaker 1: he spit back, leading to his being beaten by a
Speaker 1: police officer and losing most of the site in one
Speaker 1: of his eyes. While leaving peak skill, he had an
Speaker 1: altercation with a bus driver who tried to make him
Speaker 1: sit in the back. You can expect a future episode
Speaker 1: on the peak skill riots, because that is a whole
Speaker 1: other story certainly worthy of talking about. Yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: on my list forever and I was like, well, this
Speaker 1: seems like a good reason to bump it up to
Speaker 1: the top. Here's the transition. Boy Bullard also made some
Speaker 1: trips back to Europe, but he did not think it
Speaker 1: was possible to move back there. The building that had
Speaker 1: housed les caudrill burned down during the war. He didn't
Speaker 1: receive any kind of compensation for it. He did continue
Speaker 1: to be honored for his service, though. In nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: France brought him back for a Bastille Day observation. He
Speaker 1: was one of the three men who was part of
Speaker 1: re lighting the flame at the tomb of the unknown soldier.
Speaker 1: There are actually some pictures of him like laying a
Speaker 1: wreath of flowers there on October nine of nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: He was also made a night in the French Legion
Speaker 1: of Honor at a ceremony that took place in the
Speaker 1: French consulate in New York. That happened on his sixty
Speaker 1: four birthday. Toward the end of his life, bullard started
Speaker 1: working on an autobiography called all blood runs red, although
Speaker 1: it was never published. He worked with an assistant, Louise
Speaker 1: Fox Connell, because he didn't think he could write well
Speaker 1: enough in English. Just a note that there is also
Speaker 1: a biography by that same title. That is a different work,
Speaker 1: although the nineteen seventy two biography titled the black swallow
Speaker 1: of death quotes from that one extensively. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: go buy a copy of a book titled All Blood
Speaker 1: Runs Red, it's going to be a different thing. Um.
Speaker 1: There are still copies of it in archives though it exists.
Speaker 1: It was just never published. In nineteen fifty nine, Eleanor
Speaker 1: Roosevelt wrote about Bullard and her column my day. That
Speaker 1: was after Louise Fox Connell had sent her some clippings
Speaker 1: about Bullard to sort of try to work up some
Speaker 1: advanced publicity about their memoir and progress. At that point
Speaker 1: Bullard was working as an elevator operator at Rockefeller Center.
Speaker 1: Somebody made the connection that the Black Elevator operator at
Speaker 1: Rockefeller Center who wore French military medals on his uniform
Speaker 1: was the same person that Eleanor Roosevelt had written about
Speaker 1: in her column. After that he was invited to be
Speaker 1: on the today show that aired on December of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine. In nineteen sixty, French President Charles de Gaul
Speaker 1: visited New York and Bullard was invited to meet him.
Speaker 1: He was a v I p guest and a member
Speaker 1: of degall's honor guard. On October twelfth nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: Eugene Jacques Bullard died of intestinal cancer in New York
Speaker 1: at the age of sixty six. He was buried at
Speaker 1: the Federation of French War Veterans Cemetery and Flushing New York,
Speaker 1: wearing his French military uniform. In nine four the US
Speaker 1: air force posthumously promoted him to second lieutenant, a rank
Speaker 1: that would have allowed him to fly for the US
Speaker 1: had it been allowing black pilots in World War One.
Speaker 1: On October nine nineteen, a statue of Bullard was unveiled
Speaker 1: at the Museum of Aviation at Warner Robbins Air Force
Speaker 1: Base in Georgia. There is also a bust of him
Speaker 1: in the collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I finally got to do the episode on Him,
Speaker 1: and I'm also glad I waited a while to do
Speaker 1: it because there was definitely way more information available than
Speaker 1: back in like Sten Ish, when people started sending us
Speaker 1: the viral facebook post sing you should do an episode
Speaker 1: on this guy. Yeah, uh, do you have some listener
Speaker 1: mail for us? I do. It's a listener tweet. This
Speaker 1: tweet came from Susie, who said Hey, at mimst in
Speaker 1: history and at one hundred nine nine native, you both
Speaker 1: covered the lowry war this week. Love when two of
Speaker 1: my faves overlap. And then uh, Smiley faced with hearts emoji. Um,
Speaker 1: native American calling, which is who has the twitter handle
Speaker 1: one native quote. tweeted that and said happy coincidence. Missed
Speaker 1: in history. Let's coordinate next time. So total random coincidence.
Speaker 1: We talked about the lowry war during the same week
Speaker 1: as native America calling did uh an episode that was
Speaker 1: about multiple different indigenous outlaws. I super recommend going and
Speaker 1: listening to this episode. Number One. Native America calling is
Speaker 1: a show that airs live on the radio, so it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where there's like very clear specific
Speaker 1: times that you have to do the ad breaks. So
Speaker 1: if you're listening to it and you're like, why did
Speaker 1: they cut that person off, that's why that was an ad.
Speaker 1: was going to go there. Number One, uh. It starts
Speaker 1: with news updates that are related to indigenous people in
Speaker 1: the US and if you are not up to speed
Speaker 1: on various social and news issues that affect the indigenous
Speaker 1: community like that is a minute to get a glimpse
Speaker 1: of that. Uh. And then they talked to multiple different people, um,
Speaker 1: about indigenous outlaws related to their specific indigenous tribe or nation. Um.
Speaker 1: I super recommend it because you're hearing directly from people
Speaker 1: about their own UH indigenous heritage. The person who talks
Speaker 1: about the LOWRY WAR UH is nancy fields. Nancy fields
Speaker 1: is actually one of the people I had seen on
Speaker 1: a panel Um, that was by the North Carolina Museum
Speaker 1: of history. That was part of the research for the
Speaker 1: lowry war episode. So in addition to talking to Nancy fields,
Speaker 1: the host of that episode, Seawan Spruce, talks to some
Speaker 1: other indigenous elders about people from their own tribe, nations,
Speaker 1: uh past. So I downloaded that as soon as I
Speaker 1: got this and I listened to it again. It is
Speaker 1: a radio show that it also comes out as a podcast,
Speaker 1: which you can find, I imagine, in any podcast APP.
Speaker 1: I founded an apple podcast and they're also at native
Speaker 1: America calling dot Com. Um. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for to Susie for drawing our attention to the fact
Speaker 1: that we had this weird, totally random coincidence with a
Speaker 1: completely different show about the same subject. That does happen
Speaker 1: from farm to time, UM, and I'm glad I got
Speaker 1: the chance to listen to that myself as well. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to write to us about this or any
Speaker 1: other podcast, where at history podcast, at I heart radio
Speaker 1: DOT com. And you'll also find us all over social
Speaker 1: media at miss in history. That's where you'll find our facebook, twitter,
Speaker 1: pinterest and instagram. And you can't subscribe to our show
Speaker 1: on the I heart radio APP or wherever else you
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Speaker 1: class is a production of I heart radio. For more
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