Dallas – Today, in 1958, Ruth Carroll Taylor, the first African-American flight attendant in the United States, is now performing his duties for the first time.
Taylor initially trained as a nurse before becoming a flight attendant. She first applied for Transworld Airlines (TWA) in 1957. However, her application was rejected due to her skin tone.
This angered Taylor, and she filed a complaint against the TWA with the New York State Commission on Discrimination. No action occurred against the airlines, but other companies began rethinking their policies regarding the hiring of “minority” crews.
Mohawk Airlines makes history
One such company was Mohawk Airlines (MO). When the airline opened its recruitment, 800 African Americans applied. Taylor was the only successful candidate and was hired in December 1957.
Her first flight was from Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport (ITH) to New York (JFK). This groundbreaking moment led the TWA to reverse that decision and hired Margaret Grant, the first major US carrier to hire African Americans.
Sadly, Taylor's days in MO were short-lived. Her employment has broken racial barriers within the industry, but that would be another regulation of the time that will lead to her departure just six months after she was hired. Married women were prohibited by airlines at the time.
Taylor was engaged before being hired by the airline. As her wedding day approached, she was forced to resign.
Unknown photographers, public domain via Wikimedia Commons
I'll continue the fight
When she left Mohawk, her fight for racial equality never stopped. Taylor continued to work on improving civil rights, reporting in Washington in March 1963, becoming an activist on consumer issues and women's rights.
Taylor, who spoke to Jet Magazine in 1995, admitted that he didn't want to be a flight attendant. She did it to break the racial barriers that existed in the industry.
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Explore airline history volumes i
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David H. Stringer, history editor at Airways Magazine, chronicles the story of the commercial aviation industry in an airline history article that has appeared on Airways for 20 years. Here, for the first time, I have edited these articles.
Subjects A to C are presented in the first of these three volumes. Volume 1 also includes individual histories of careers such as Allegheny, America, Branif and Continental, as it covers topics such as the 1960s state aviation and regional Canadian airlines. Get your copy today!
