Next to being a Hollywood movie star, nothing was more glamorous.
October 1, 2013 6:12 PM   Subscribe

"After all I had gone through, I couldn’t believe I was finally wearing the uniform. I had made it. I was going to fly. It was such an accomplishment." International Politics and the First African American Flight Attendants posted by jaguar (3 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
That's a really interesting story, how the airlines had policies about not hiring black people or Jewish people and how she had to sue them to get her glamorous job which she eventually quit because of the exhausting racism of the time. I'm almost more interested in that weird Black History in Aviation website which is branded with American Airlines' brand but seems like it was made by high school kids in 2004 or so. Internet Archive shows it as being from 2010. AA does seem to make an effort diversity-wise.
posted by jessamyn at 6:51 PM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the website is awful. The photos are pretty awesome, though.
posted by jaguar at 7:27 PM on October 1, 2013


Fascinating; thanks for the post. This is one of those weird, intriguing sidelights of history: "According to Vantoch, [Lyndon] Johnson 'made stewardess integration his personal cause.'" Who knew?
posted by languagehat at 9:18 AM on October 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


« Older Teahupo'o... ohhh... whooooah!   |   Snowden documents shed light on Shiban, Akbar, and... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments