The Flight of Jesse Leroy Brown

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, Bro