My grandfather – Jesse Leroy Brown, the nation’s first Black naval aviator – was killed in action during the Korean War on December 3rd, 1950, when he was only 24 years old. The only child born of Jesse and his wife Daisy, my mom, Pamela, was a toddler at the time of his passing.
On November 23rd, the motion picture Devotion will be released, depicting the months leading up to Jesse’s deployment to Korea and his subsequent death after his plane was shot down during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Sadly, his remains are still on the wrong side of the 38th parallel.
Like so many other Black trailblazers, Jesse’s story never received the attention it deserved. Like so many Black American war heroes before and after him, he loved, fought, and died for a country that didn’t love him back. And, like so many Black soldiers, he exhibited grace and resilience in the face of oppression, degradation, and violence.
The opportunity for the world to meet my grandfather through the magic of this film has our hearts swelling with excitement. Perhaps because he died so young, we feel it is a chance for us to meet him too. We have always carried the heavy responsibility of honoring our Jesse. For so long, he has belonged to us, his story only truly known by his comrades, family, and a few scattered historians. Now, he will take his rightful place in history, and pride is not enough to describe the feeling.
Jesse Brown is portrayed by Jonathan Majors with a central focus and force that is riveting and emotional. My grandfather has been a mix of kinfolk and folklore. What I know of him was mostly passed down from the elders – stories from my late grandmother Daisy (portrayed in the film by Christina Jackson), his brothers and his Navy squadron mates when they were still with us. Few alive today had personal experiences with him. For my brother Jamal and I, we heard mostly of his legend and legacy. My mother was too young to know him, so the tradition of keeping his story alive through our family lore has been deeply important to all of us.
What we know of Jesse – and hope you see in him – is a story of his love, commitment, and brilliance.
Jesse, the Mississippi born son of a teacher and a sharecropper, was a prodigy. As my Uncle Junior tells it, at age 17, he was approached to participate in a local competition to help design a part for a water pump. A company owner had been to various white colleges and high schools but came to segregated Eureka High to engage the “colored” students since no one else had been able to successfully engineer the necessary part. My grandfather, gifted and full of ingenuity, was able to design the part and it worked flawlessly. With tears in his eyes, Uncle Junior remembered what the owner said to Jesse: “If you weren’t a (N-word), figuring out how to fix that machine could have paid for your college.”
Jesse was a loving husband. Growing up, my grandmother Daisy didn’t talk about their love story much. She held their love close. But everyone who knew them frequently commented on how in love they were. As kids, we’d hear stories about Jesse walking over ten miles just to spend time with her.
His death was such a devastating loss, that her pain kept her from sharing too much with us. I wish that I had been able to know more about the soft parts of their love. However, her strength lay in her relentless commitment to sharing him with the world. Her fortitude helped her maintain close relationships with Tom Hudner – his wingman who heroically risked his own life in a valiant attempt to save Jesse – and the other men who Jesse served with. In each Christmas card, occasional phone call, and at events celebrating Jesse and Tom, I would witness the glint in her eye as she talked about their life together, her loss and his sacrifice.
Jesse and Daisy were resilient. They overcame obstacles difficult to imagine or depict or feel through a modern lens. In Devotion, the audience will get a taste of the racism they encountered. You’ll hear about Jesse’s Navy commander and trainer in Pensacola, FL who refused to pin on Jesse’s wings after he completed training. What you won’t see is Jesse and Daisy being pelted with tomatoes as they walked in downtown Hattiesburg, Jesse in his Navy whites and Daisy in her Sunday best. You will hear some of the countless slurs he endured because he would write them all down and repeat them back, but you won’t really know how afraid or helpless he felt in real time during those moments. This film celebrates what he accomplished despite the hatred and indignities of everyday life in a society that deemed Black people as inferior and placed their safety at risk from moment to moment.
These deeply personal stories about my grandfather’s heroism continue to inspire me, creating in me a drive to be successful and make him proud. I admit, I have struggled with the idea of what happens when everyone knows his name. How can I adequately honor the legacy of a legend? The anxiety that has built over the months is hard to put into words. There’s a lot that you give up when sharing a story like this. But it is our story, and we are so proud to share it and carry his legacy forward.
Our greatest hope is that it encourages and inspires people to want to learn more and find courage and passion for the things they want most in this life. As you’ll hear Daisy say in the film, he’s “the only person I know who truly belonged in the sky.”