David E. Harris, a former Air Force bomber pilot who at the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s became the first Black pilot hired by a major commercial airline in the United States, died on March 8 in Marietta, Ga., about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta.
American Airlines hired Mr. Harris in 1964, and he flew for the carrier for 30 years, rising to captain in 1967.
In 1984, he made history for the second time with American when he flew with the first all-Black cockpit crew on a commercial airliner.
Before Mr. Harris was hired, airline executives had discriminated for years against Black pilots out of fear that white passengers wouldn’t want to board the planes they flew, and that it would be too difficult to find them hotel accommodations.
“He knew that he was extremely qualified, so on paper he would seem like an ideal candidate to many commercial airlines,” Michael H. Cottman wrote in his book “Segregated Skies: David Harris’s Trailblazing Journey to Rise Above Racial Barriers” (2021).
Persons:
David E, Harris, Leslie Germaine, Michael H, Cottman, David Harris’s, ”
Organizations:
Air Force, American Airlines, Black
Locations:
United States, Marietta , Ga, Atlanta