The Man Called Brown Condor

by Thomas E. Simmons

  Turning offshore back toward Gulfport, Robinson could see the barrier islands, Horn, Ship, and Cat. Looking down on East Beach near the harbor, he picked out the spot where he saw his first airplane, Moisant’s Curtiss Pusher. Seems like a long time and a million miles ago.

  Over the port, he picked up the northbound Gulf & Ship Island Railway tracks and followed them across the L&N Railroad toward Gulfport’s grass airfield located west of the tracks and north of 33rd Street. Out his left window, he could see the Big Quarter and was able to pick out the two-story house on Thirty-First Avenue where he grew up. He wondered if his sister Bertha would get home during his visit. Bertha had married a fellow school teacher, H. L. Stokes. They were teaching school in Arkansas.

  At eight hundred feet, John flew a left downwind pattern, lowered the vacuum-operated flaps, and turned base. Letting down to four hundred feet, he did a final turn and crabbed into a crosswind from the southeast. He set the plane down and taxied to the flight line where four planes of various makes were tied down in front of the one hangar on the field.

  The hangar doors were open. John could see a man working on a WACO biplane. His name was Arthur Hughes. Arthur had been running the airport since 1934. There was barely enough local and transient business to keep the field going. The only regular flight into Gulfport was a mail plane, since airmail service had begun in 1928. Hughes got by selling fuel, working on aircraft engines and airframes, and giving flying lessons to the few students who could afford them.

  Mr. Hughes saw the Stinson taxi up. He climbed down from the WACO. Cleaning the oil off his hands with a rag, he walked out to meet the pilot. When he saw John step down from the Stinson, he knew right away who he was. He had read all about him in the local Daily Herald newspaper. Hughes introduced himself and helped tie the Stinson down for the night. It was quittin’ time and he offered to drive John to his mother’s house. John thanked him. “That would be mighty nice of you, Mr. Hughes.” Johnny was surprised at the courtesy.

  In answer to the knock on her front door, Celeste Cobb came from the back of the house wiping her hands on her apron. All she could distinguish through the screen door in the failing light of dusk was the silhouette of a tall man.

  “Hi, Momma.”

  The small, stout woman held both hands to her lips. “Johnny! Oh! Praise Jesus!” She threw open the door and put her arms around his neck. He picked her up off the floor and swung her around on the front porch.

  “Oh, Johnny! Daddy Cobb and me prayed so hard for you. We so proud. Everybody’s been waitin’ for you. Now you put me down! I got work in the kitchen to do.” John set his mother down, picked up his suitcase, and followed her into the house. “Your old room is ready upstairs, fresh, clean sheets and bath towels. We all ready for you.” She walked down the hall toward the kitchen wiping joyful tears from her eyes with her apron. “My baby’s home!”

  John and his mother were sitting in the kitchen when they heard the front door open and the distinct step of a person walking with a limp. Celeste motioned for John to be quiet. “I’m in the kitchen, darlin’. Did you bring home the fresh shrimp for the gumbo?”

  Mr. Cobb, walking down the hallway answered, “Yes, honey, I got shrimp, fresh okra, and I also bought a basket of peaches and some fine pork chops.” He rounded the kitchen doorway.

  “That boy gonna need lots of your cookin’ when he gets . . .”

  John stood up and grinned at the gray-haired man standing in the doorway. “Hi, Daddy.”

  Charles Cobb came in and set the groceries on the kitchen table. “Let me look at you, boy. Don’t you look fine, just fine, son.” The older man fought the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Johnny. “I’m so thankful you’re home, son.”

  To John, Daddy Cobb looked much older than he remembered and the limp had grown more pronounced. “You lookin’ mighty fine yourself.” For a moment longer, John held tight to the gentle man he loved.

  The word that Johnny Robinson was home spread rapidly. That evening, the Cobb home filled with friends and neighbors of all ages. Many brought food and drink turning the homecoming into a neighborhood party that spilled out on the front yard and into street. To his surprise, Janette Sullivan brought him a chocolate cake just like she used to when he came home from Tuskegee. She was one of several women who paid a great deal of attention to John.

  Everyone wanted to hear about the war, about Emperor Selassie, the world travels, his battles with the Italians. John answered many questions, but passed lightly over as many as he could. He tried to hide the embarrassment he felt from all the attention.

  Some wondered if the war had changed John, but in an interview in 1974, Bernadette Barabino (Graham) remembered, “When he came home, he was the same old sweet Johnny. Women were crazy about him. He was a gentleman everybody loved.”

  Celeste introduced her son to leaders from the AME and the Bethel Baptist Church. They said they hoped he didn’t mind that they had arranged a big day of events for him on Sunday. First, they said, there would be a picnic at the airport where they hoped he wouldn’t mind giving airplane rides. They would raffle off chances for the rides.

  Now John understood why Mr. Hughes had been so nice to him. All the doings at the airport on Sunday would be good for business. He glanced at his beaming mother and knew he was trapped. He smiled at her and told the church people, “I’ll be happy to do it.”

  “That’s just wonderful. Several city officials including Mayor Milner will be out at the airport, and afterwards there’ll be a big reception at Bethel Baptist Church. And don’t you forget, the Daily Herald called and asked if you will go in to see ’em tomorrow. They want to do a story on you and the doings at the airport.”

  “That sounds mighty fine,” John said without much enthusiasm. “I can tell ya’ll put a lot of work into all this.”

  When the last guest left, John let out an audible sigh and slumped into an overstuffed chair in the living room. Charles Cobb returned from the kitchen with two bottles of Dixie beer. For a while both men sat quietly and sipped their beers.

  “You seem a little uneasy, son. I guess we making too much fuss over you. Everyone ‘round here heard you was coming and wanted to see you. There was folks here tonight I ain’t never seen myself.”

  ”Well, Daddy, it’s nice to get all the attention, but after a while it gets a little heavy to carry.” John easily picked up the familiar speech of his youth. “Folks keep wantin’ to hear ’bout the war, but they don’t want to hear ’bout it, I mean what it’s really like. I can’t tell ’em anyway. Don’t want to talk ’bout it, not to them, not to the newspaper. I’m sick to death of it. I don’t even want to think about it.” John paused a long minute. “You know it’s gonna happen again, war I mean. Hitler and Mussolini and all their Fascist thugs are gonna set fire to Europe if the rest of ’em don’t do something to stop ’em pretty soon. I heard people talking ’bout it on the ship. They sittin’ round waiting for the League of Nations to help. It ain’t gonna be no help—didn’t help Ethiopia. Talk ain’t gonna stop ’em. Proved that already. It’s gonna happen, Daddy, but I’m through with it. I’m gonna go back to my flying school and teach pilots. We gonna need pilots and lots of ’em. Some of ’em gonna be black if I have anything to do with it.”

  John paused, then shook his head.

  “We mighty glad you’re home, son. Wish you would stay.”

  “I wish I could, but there’s no place for me down here. You know, more than half my students in Chicago are white. They got more money up there. Mr. Hughes told me he had only two students. Those two and a few young ladies from Gulf Park College are all that can afford lessons on the whole coast. Seems there’s a Dr. Cox from the college teaches the Gulf Park girls in his own plane. I know you and Momma do alright down here. Most white folks here on the coast treat blacks fair . . . long as they don’t get too ambitious. Things are different up North. Sure there are whites up there who don’t like
colored folks, places where coloreds aren’t allowed same as down here, but there’s more opportunity. I have a business in Chicago I can’t walk out on. I’m making good money. I have a place in the community.”

  “Son, I understand. This has been a good place for your mother and me. Not everything’s right for colored folks, I don’t mean that, but I doubt we would be happy anyplace else. We know you’re used to a different way and you got things to do. I reckon Chicago is more home to you now.”

  “Ya’ll worked so hard to send me and Bertha to school. Ya’ll are part of everything we do.”

  Mr. Cobb got up and put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Come on, son. I reckon we’ve worn you plumb out.” As the two got up from their chairs, Mr. Cobb said, “I’ve got tomorrow off. How long since you been fishing?”

  “Lord, I don’t remember.”

  “I got two poles and a bucket. The tide’ll be changing late afternoon.”

  “Sounds good to me, Daddy. ”

  John woke up late feeling rested. Celeste Cobb came into his room carrying his uniform she had brushed and pressed.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead. It’s nine o’clock. I’ll have you some breakfast by the time you get dressed. You’re supposed to be at the newspaper by ten-thirty.”

  “Momma, I thought I could be out of that uniform now that I’m home.”

  “Well, you can’t. You gonna wear it to the newspaper. They’ll want a picture I bet and you gonna wear it for the goings-on this Sunday at the airport too. Besides, I took your suit to the cleaners and the rest of your stuff I’m washing and ironing.”

  “Momma, you haven’t changed a bit. You still boss around here.” John laughed.

  “That’s right. You may be an emperor’s pilot and a big hero, but ‘round here, I’m queen.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  By the time John had cleaned up and finished dressing, the wonderful blended aroma of brewed coffee, baking biscuits, and frying bacon drifted up from the kitchen. He put on his tie, buffed his shoes, and went downstairs to a morning feast. Celeste fussed over him, glowing with the joy of having her boy home. She served up hot coffee to start things off. Then came two eggs over light, crisp bacon, steaming buttered grits, and biscuits with homemade scuppernong jelly.

  Finishing his last cup of coffee, John protested, “I think after all this breakfast I’m gonna have to go back upstairs and take a little nap.”

  “You get yourself out of this house and down to the paper. Walking to town oughta work off a few of those biscuits you helped yourself to.”

  John walked down Thirty-First Avenue and turned left on Thirteenth Street. There was a new service station on the corner of Thirtieth and Thirteenth. Like most of the gas stations in the South, it had two gas pumps and three toilets, one on the side marked Women, one marked Men, and the third in back marked Colored. The station attendant looked a little perplexed. He had never seen a Negro man in an officer’s uniform before.

  John crossed the G&SI tracks and turned north on Twenty-Seventh Avenue toward the train station. “Johnny! Johnny Robinson,” called a large man pulling to the curb in a new four-door Dodge D2 sedan. John recognized the well-dressed white man wearing a seersucker suit, white shirt, tie, suspenders, and a sailor straw hat. John had worked for him after school, weekends, and summers as a teenager.

  “Hello, Mr. Simpson. How have you been?”

  “Just fine, Johnny. Mrs. Simpson’s maid told her this morning that you got home yesterday. You have really done yourself proud. We kept up with you in the papers and from Lowell Thomas on the radio. Several men including the mayor were talking about you this morning at coffee. Do you need a ride somewhere?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Simpson, I appreciate the offer but I’ve just got a few blocks to go and sorta want to look the town over. It’s been a while since I was here.”

  “All right, Johnny, just want you to know we think a lot of you.”

  At the train station, where the GS&I tracks running north from the port crossed the east-west L&N tracks, things did not look as busy as when he was a boy. The waiting room was still divided between white and colored, but the hustle and bustle was gone. The buildings across the brick paved street were beginning to look a little shabby, especially the small hotel.

  John walked around to the Railway Express freight door. A stout black man was loading cartons onto a baggage wagon. He was wearing railroad bib overalls and a seasoned Railway Express cap. A watch chain hung down from one pocket, while from the small center pocket of the bib the drawstring of a tobacco pouch suggested he was a roll-your-own smoker.

  “Can you tell me when the next train leaves for New Orleans?”

  The man looked up at John. He put down the package he was lifting and broke into a wide grin. “Johnny! Hot damn, if you don’t look like something! I mean, you lookin’ good!” He shook John’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, I want you to meet everybody. I been telling ’em about you and the fun we used to have. You know, I remember when you gave me a model airplane you made from an apple crate. Come on and meet some folks.”

  “I only have time to say hello, Marcus. I’ve got to get down to the newspaper. I’ll look you up later.”

  “Well just let me introduce you to the stationmaster and my bossman.”

  Marcus led John to the office window where a telegraph operator sat working his key. After he had been introduced to all the railroad men in sight, John excused himself by inviting them all to the airport on Sunday. Marcus, his boss, and the stationmaster were promised a flight.

  It was already ten o’clock. John quickened his step. He passed the theater with its side ticket window for blacks who had to climb an outside staircase and enter the balcony to see the moving pictures. It was the only theater in town that allowed Negroes at all. It, the Anderson Theater, and the larger Paramount Theater were the only buildings in town cooled with “refrigerated air.”

  Turning east down Fourteenth Street, he walked past merchants celebrating Trade Day. Elmer’s department store had a sale on men’s seersucker suits at $3.98. Pants and shirts were on sale for $1.00 each and Panama straw hats were seventy-nine cents. Nearer the paper was the Hill Grocery Store where signs in the window advertised steak at twenty-three cents a pound and lettuce at five cents a head. A package of five bars of Octagon soap was priced at ten cents.

  John passed the Markham Hotel. On the opposite corner was the Daily Herald office. He knew that if he had been a white celebrity, the paper would have sent a reporter out to his house, but he had grown up with such differences and rarely let it bother him. It’s not so different in the North; they just don’t call it segregation. I reckon one day maybe this country will get over all that, but I got too much to do to worry ’bout it.

  He entered the Daily Herald office and was invited into the newsroom which was separated by little more than a counter from the rest of the interior. In the back the presses could be heard running while the clickclick of the linotype machines joined the pecking of typewriters, ringing telephones, and people talking over the noise—or at least trying to. Windows were open and the air was circulated by numerous oscillating fans, some mounted on walls, some sitting on the floor, but it was still hot and humid inside. The men all worked with their coats off, their ties left on, and their sleeves rolled up to their forearms. The ladies all wore light cotton summer dresses. The editor, Mr. Eugene Wilkes, invited John into his small office, which had windows on three sides through which he could observe the entire operation. In the office, John met Mr. Glen Rutledge who introduced himself and offered John a chair and the interview began. The two newsmen were genuinely interested in John’s story. All in all, John thought the interview was a well-spent hour. I bet maybe it was the first interview ever with a black man sitting down in the editor’s office.

  The story made the front page of the afternoon paper under the headline, “Gulfport Negro Who Piloted Emperor Haile Selassie Visits Home; Relates His Experiences In Wartim
e Flying.”

  The article dated June 26, 1936 began: “J. C. Robinson, Negro aviator who gained worldwide fame as Emperor Haile Selassie’s official pilot and who was in charge of the entire Ethiopian Air Force, is in Gulfport visiting his stepfather and mother, C. C. Cobb and wife, who reside at 1905 Thirty-First Avenue. Robinson called at the Herald office this morning wearing the Ethiopian army official uniform. His rank is colonel and his uniform carries the official emblem of the emperor, the Lion of Judah, worked in gold thread mined from the gold mines of Ethiopia from which King Solomon was supposed to have secured much of the gold for his famous temple at Jerusalem.

  “He was employed by C. A. Simpson in Gulfport at one time and went from Gulfport to Chicago, where he worked for six years with the Curtiss Flying Service.

  “Ethiopia had twenty-four airplanes during the war, he said, and all but three of them were shot down.

  “During his thirteen month’s service in the Imperial Ethiopian Air Service, he was wounded three times and gassed twice.”

  The article went on to describe the situation in Ethiopia and the emperor’s escape. It concluded by announcing that Robinson would make an appearance at the Gulfport airport sponsored by church groups before returning to Chicago.

  Celeste Cobb carefully clipped the article from the front page and placed it in the scrapbook with all the others she had collected. Then she put the scrapbook back on the table beside her Bible.

  The following Sunday, Gulfport Airfield was overflowing. The mostly black crowd was salted with white officials, aviation enthusiasts, and curious onlookers. Children ran among the crowd, paying little attention to their mother’s warnings not to get their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes dirty. Arthur Hughes patrolled the hangar and ramp warning, “You young’uns stay off those airplanes! Don’t touch the propellers!” There were five planes on the field and Hughes had his hands full protecting them, not just from children but from curious adults as well. “Don’t touch the airplanes!” It was the largest crowd ever gathered at the airfield.