During his youth, he suffered the trauma of watching a white mob attempt to lynch his father over a workplace dispute. Meanwhile, his father continued to voice the conviction that African-Americans had to maintain their dignity and self-respect in the face of the white prejudice. Despite this, Bullard became enamored with his father's stories of France where slavery had been abolished and blacks were treated the same as whites. When he reached his 11th birthday, Bullard ran away from home with the intent of getting to France. Stopping in Atlanta, he joined an English clan of gypsies known by the surname of Stanley and traveled throughout Georgia tending their horses and learning to race. It was the Stanley's who told him how the racial color line did not exist in England and reset his determination to now get to England.