The Flight of Jesse Leroy Brown

Theodore Taylor

ago 2022 · Open Road Media

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This biography of America’s first African American naval aviator is a “compelling portrait of a quiet hero [and] the racial climate between 1926 and 1959” (Booklist).

“In the late 1940s, when every aspiring black pilot had heard of the army’s Tuskegee program, Jesse Leroy Brown set his sights on becoming a navy aviator. An outstanding student and top athlete, the 17-year-old’s ambition was met with a combination of incredulity and resistance. Yet, at a time when Jim Crow laws were rampant, Brown managed to break the color barrier to become the first black U.S. Navy pilot. Taylor puts his considerable narrative skills to good use in tracing Brown’s path from his youth in poverty-stricken Palmer’s Crossing, Miss., to his eventual induction into the heady and dangerous world of carrier aviation. Taylor based much of his research on interviews with those who knew Brown and on personal letters from more than a half-century ago [and] doesn't skimp on the indignities Brown suffered. . . . An engaging and intimate glimpse of a young pioneer who desperately wanted to earn his aviator’s wings.” —Publishers Weekly

“More than a biography, this is a thrilling story of naval aviation and combat.” —School Library Journal

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Theodore Taylor was an American author of more than fifty fiction and nonfiction books for young adult and adult readers. During World War II, he first served as a cadet-AB seaman on a gasoline tanker, then became a naval officer in the Pacific Theater. Taylor published his first book, The Magnificent Mitscher, in 1955. His novel The Cay won eleven literary awards, including the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was adapted into a film in 1974. In 2006, Taylor passed away in his beloved “house in the woods” in Laguna Beach, California. He was surrounded by his family, his books, and years of wonderful memories.