A day after what would have been his 98th birthday, Jessie Leroy Brown’s name was emblazoned across the terminal building at Bobby L. Chain Municipal Airport in Hattiesburg in recognition of his landmark accomplishments and heroism.
Brown was the first Black man to complete the U.S. Navy’s Basic Flight Training Program and receive his pilot’s wings. The Hattiesburg native lost his life at the age of 24 after being shot down in the Korean War.
Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker, Brown’s daughter Pamela Knight, and other community officials gathered at the airport to dedicate the terminal building under the late pilot’s name.
“I am just so honored that the City of Hattiesburg recognized their native son, and I’m just forever grateful,” Knight said. “My father didn’t start out to be a hero. He just loved the thought of flying.”
Brown became a civil rights icon before the movement swept the United States, earning his wings in the late 1940s. As a student at Ohio State, he tried and failed to join the school’s aviation program due to his ethnicity. But Brown forged on, eventually earning a spot in the Navy’s V-5 Aviation Cadet Training Program. He pushed through numerous other barriers on his way to earning pilot wings as the only Black cadet in his class.
“This is a story of a Hattiesburg native who would be undeterred by the prevailing thought process of the day – that would leave most people to give up and think their dream of flying was unattainable,” Southeast Aviation Services Manager, Chip Gibson, said. “This is a story of a man who – despite the hurdles and obstacles he faced – would selflessly sacrifice his life for his country.
“It should come as no surprise to those of us from Hattiesburg that someone from our own hometown would willingly accept this challenge, prove others wrong, and pave the way for countless others to pursue what they too thought was impossible.”
Mayor Barker echoed the sentiments of Knight and Gibson, honoring Brown’s legacy as a pilot and civil rights trailblazer. But for Barker, attaching Brown’s name to the airport is also a rallying cry for the city.
“We want to lean into his character as we look to the next years and decades of this airport’s existence. In short, we want a vision as big as Jesse Leroy Brown’s,” Barker said, noting that while the facility is a humble one, the city aims to invest in it heavily to make it a transformational asset for Hattiesburg.
“But that’s why we need to embrace a vision for this airport as big as Jessie L. Brown had for himself. I’m sure he was underestimated many times in his life. The limitations that others saw in himself, and his potential was nothing compared to the vision, tenacity, and perseverance he saw in himself. We want that kind of vision for what this airport can mean for our community.”
