“Flying Home” was originally published and collected in Cross Section: A Collection of New American Writing (1944) and is currently most readily available in Flying Home and Other Stories (Vintage).

The short story “Flying Home” is an important contribution to American literature not only because it defies convention and succeeds in terms of style, technique, and its use of aspects of Negro culture but because it is the stuff of fine literature. I always enjoy reading the story; and although its subject matter and themes are not joyous, it leaves me feeling good, enriched, better about the promise of humanity.

The story also succeeds in exploring Negro consciousness and what is often called racial conflict in the Deep South without being didactic. And perhaps most importantly, “Flying Home” also succeeds in its use of folklore and myth. Folklore and myth blend in as intrinsic parts of the story.

The scene is Alabama in the 1940s near Tuskegee Institute, where, at that time, Ralph Ellison was a music student. There was in fact an air school at Tuskegee like the one in the story. It was established by the War Department in response to complaints about discrimination against black men in pilot training. Here black pilots were being trained for the war, yet few would ever see combat. Most black soldiers were placed in service companies. So, in a sense, Todd, the young Negro pilot in the story, is an anomaly—and he thinks of himself and is seen as such.

The subject matter of “Flying Home” is simple: a conversation between an old black man and young black man in a field where the young man's airplane has crashed. The themes are powerful and universal: crisis, ambition, shame, pride, racism, redemption, recovery, and deliverance.

The myth of flying has long roots in African American culture. In the folklore there are many examples of characters flying away from earthly troubles. The legacy of these myths found their way into the literature. Two examples are the 1930s Broadway play All God's Children and Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon.