Hubert Julian

Hubert Fauntleroy Julian
Born	20 September 1897 Port of Spain, Trinidad
Died	19 February 1983 (aged 85) New York, NY, USA

Hubert Fauntleroy Julian (21 September 1897 – 19 February 1983) was a Trinidad-born aviation pioneer. He was nicknamed "The Black Eagle".

Hubert Julian was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1897, the son of a cocoa plantation manager. He migrated to Canada in 1914, where he claimed to have learned to pilot an aeroplane and served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Air Force. In 1921 he patented the "Airplane Safety Appliance," a combination parachute and propeller.

Hubert Julian emigrated from Montreal to Harlem in 1921. His first flight above Harlem occurred during the 1922 Universal Negro Improvement Association Convention, when he flew over the parade in a plane decorated with UNIA slogans. That flight led to his appointment as head of the organization’s new Aeronautical Department. He made his first parachute jump on 3 September 1922, at an airshow at Curtiss Field on Long Island headlined by black pilot Bessie Coleman. Several more jumps followed in the next year, at Curtiss Field and at Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. During one jump in New Jersey in June 1923, Julian played "I’m Running Wild" on the saxophone.

Julian's most famous parachute jumps were into Harlem itself. On 29 April 1923, Julian flew from an airfield in Hasbrouck Heights to Harlem, circled City College, dropping two noise bombs to attract residents’ attention. He then leaped from the plane, dressed in a bright red suit; the wind carried him away from his target, a vacant lot on 140th Street near Seventh Avenue, to the roof of a tenement at 301 West 140th Street. A large crowd followed him, and, after a police officer charged him with disorderly conduct, they carried Julian to the UNIA’s Liberty Hall. Addressing the crowd, he spoke about aviation, promoted a parachute he had designed, and urged them to support A. I. Hart, a black-owned department store under threat from white competition. On 5 November 1923, Julian again flew to Harlem, planning to parachute into Saint Nicholas Park. On this occasion, wind carried him instead to the police station on West 123rd Street, as a huge crowd followed. After he became stuck between the station and the next building, two officers pulled him into the second floor.

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