David E. Harris, a former Air Force captain who became the first Black pilot for a major U.S. passenger airline in the 1960s after battles by others to enter the industry, died Friday, March 8, 2024, at a hospice center in Marietta, Ga. He was 89. (Alaska Aviation Museum/Facebook)
David E. Harris, a former Air Force captain who became the first Black pilot for a major U.S. passenger airline in the 1960s after battles by others to enter the industry, including a landmark anti-discrimination claim backed by the Supreme Court, died Friday, March 8, at a hospice center in Marietta, Ga. He was 89.
The death was announced by his family and American Airlines, where Harris worked from 1964 to 1994. No specific cause of death was noted.
As Harris rose to captain at American, he became a symbol of Black achievement during the civil rights movement. Within the world of aviation, he was hailed as a trailblazer along with the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II and people such as Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman known to earn a pilot’s license.
Harris always was quick to note that he found a place in the co*ckpit at American after years of struggles by other Black pilots. “There is no way I should be the first,” he said. “It should’ve happened long before 1964.”
Another former Black aviator from the Air Force, Marlon D. Green, had been hired by Continental Airlines in 1957, but the offer was rescinded. After a six-year court battle, the Supreme Court in April 1963 upheld a decision in Green’s favor by the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission. The high court ruling also sent a wider message to the U.S. airline industry on hiring practices. Green began flying for Continental in January 1965.
Earlier, other Black pilots denied jobs at big U.S. carriers found different roles in the air, including ex-Tuskegee Airmen Perry Young with a helicopter service in the New York area and August Martin flying cargo aircraft.
“The reality is that there were 500 pilots — Tuskegee Airmen — who were qualified for airline jobs when they left the service,” Harris said at an event in 2008.
Timing and fate, however, handed Harris a place in aviation history. He almost dared airlines to take him — just months after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act — by intentionally pointing out his race in applications. “I am married, I have two children and I’m Black,” he recalled that he wrote on his cover letters.
He was turned down by several carriers, he said, before being hired by American on Dec. 3, 1964, two days after he left the Air Force. The airline’s purported reply to Harris’s application became part of company lore: “We don’t care if you’re black, white or chartreuse, we only want to know, can you fly the plane?”
During nine weeks of training, one of his roommates — unaware of Harris’ race because of his light complexion — made frequent racist remarks, Harris recalled. He privately fumed but decided not to speak out. Harris said he wanted to avoid anything that could disrupt getting his civilian wings.
“I was perfectly aware that there weren’t any Black pilots flying with the airlines,” Harris told South Carolina Living in 2015. After the training, Harris became a co-pilot. He was promoted to captain in 1967. American Airlines featured Harris in an ad in Ebony magazine in the 1970s, and he was part of the first all-Black co*ckpit crew in 1984.
While a flight was boarding in 1967 in Indianapolis, Harris introduced himself to one of the passengers, National Urban League Executive Director Whitney Young Jr., and thanked him for his work in the civil rights movement. Young drowned in 1971 while swimming in the surf near Lagos, Nigeria, and his body was brought by an Air Force plane to New York. His widow asked that Harris pilot the special American Airlines charter to bring Young’s remains to his native Kentucky for burial.
On board the flight was a contingent that included civil rights leaders Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson. Harris joked that his wife told him: “Don’t screw this one up. You’ll wipe out the whole civil rights movement.”
David Ellsworth Harris was born in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 22, 1934. His father was a self-employed tradesman and installed service station equipment. His mother was a homemaker.
As a boy, he was not particularly fascinated by aviation, he said. “Maybe it was there, but out to the back of my mind,” he recalled, “because there were no minority role models out there as airline pilots. World War II and the Tuskegee Airmen had come and gone.”
At Ohio State University, he joined the Air Force ROTC while studying for a degree in education. He graduated in 1957 and joined the Air Force a year later as a lieutenant, serving on bases in the United States and England. His assignments included being part of the crews for B-47 and B-52 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. He left the Air Force with the rank of captain.
For American, he flew various aircraft, including the Boeing 747 and Airbus 300. “Capt. Harris opened the doors and inspired countless Black pilots to pursue their dreams to fly,” according to a statement from American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom.
By the late 1960s, many of the major U.S. carriers had at least one Black pilot. Currently, about 3 percent of U.S. commercial pilots identify as Black, according to the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals.
During his years with American, Harris said, he did not encounter direct racial insults. He noticed, though, the stares he sometimes received while passing through airports in the South and elsewhere in his uniform. “No one was abusive, but you could tell from the body language,” he told the Tulsa World in 2008, describing his feelings of unease.
Harris’ marriage to the former Linda Dandridge ended in divorce but they remained close. His second wife, Lynne Purdy Harris, died in 2000. In addition to his first wife, survivors include two daughters from that marriage; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Well into his 80s, Harris went aloft in his single-engine Socata Trinidad. He shuttled in and out of a fly-in community near Trenton, S.C., where the roads are shared by cars and planes. “The cars are supposed to get off on the grass and let you go,” he said, smiling.
