Eugene J. Bullard, 1895-1961 / World’s First Black Combat Aviato
Eugene J. Bullard, 1895 - 1961
Bullard grew up in a small shotgun style house near this site. His father, William, was a laborer for the W. C. Bradley Company. Eugene completed the fifth grade at the 28th Street School. Shaken by the death of his mother, Josephine, and the near lynching of his father, Bullard left Columbus as a young teenager. In 1912, he stowed-away on a merchant ship out of Norfolk, Virginia. He spent the next 28 years of his life in Europe.
World’s First Black Combat Aviator
In World War I, Bullard earned the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military medal, as an infantryman at the Battle of Verdun. He later flew some 20 missions as a French combat pilot. In the interwar years, he was a musician, club owner, and celebrity in Paris. He married a Parisian society woman with whom he raised two daughters. When Germany conquered France in 1940, Bullard came to New York where he worked in obscurity for the rest of his life.
Marker is at the intersection of Talbotton Road (Georgia Route 85) and Ashley Station Road, on the left when traveling east on Talbotton Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
