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Across the Pond
My Heroes Always Fight Colonizers
The Black Eagle challenged racism all over the world
My heroes have always fought colonizers or, in this case, have at least tried to.
Hubert Julian is one of them and is my Black history hero because his courage, commitment, and determination power my ability to resist anti-Black racist oppression.
Julian was born in Trinidad’s capital in 1897 and migrated to New York in 1921. The following year, he began flying his own airplane over parades in New York City supporting Marcus Garvey, the father of Pan-Africanism and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.
Called the “Black Eagle of Harlem,” Julian was one of the first Black people to obtain a pilot’s license in the United States. He was often credited as the first Black person or one of the first Black people to fly across the Atlantic solo in 1929 and the first Black person to fly coast to coast in the U.S. in 1931. (Historians disagree on this point as some reports say he never completed the Atlantic flight.) However, in 1931, he also set the record for flying the longest without refueling.
These accomplishments were just the foundation of his heroism. He regaled audiences most Saturdays by making…
