Apologies for the tardiness of this post. Capt. Harris passed away March 8, 2024 at the age of 89. Condolences to the surviving family.
In 1964, David Harris broke the color barrier in commercial aviation when he was hired by American Airlines. Harris joined the company after serving as a captain in the U.S. Air Force flying B-52 bombers.
“It’s the greatest job in the world. I flew and flew and flew and was ready to fly more in my life,” Harris told NPR in 2022. “I would have done it another 30 years had I not grown old.”
Harris first got hooked on airplanes as a kid growing up in Columbus, Ohio. He and his brother would visit Lockbourne Air Force Base where the decorated Tuskegee Airmen were stationed after World War II.
His life was the subject of the middle-grade book, Segregated Skies: David Harris’s Trailblazing Journey to Rise Above Racial Barriers by Michael Cottman.
Capt. Harris, the first African-American commercial airline pilot in 1964…it’s astounding. At the risk of being repetitive, I again quote Chris Rock’s observation…
Interviewer: How do you feel like things have changed over the past couple decades?
White people have gotten less crazy. That’s all. […] You can say “there’s progress” and all of this. But when you say there’s progress, but you’re acting like what happened before wasn’t crazy.
“Oh, segregation, we’ve made a lot of progress and there’s no more segregation”?— Segregation’s retarded. It’s crazy to think you’re better than somebody, and they can’t eat with you and segr— that’s crazy! That’s insane behavior! Just to think that, on any level— that’s kind of insane! So, you can say “black people have made progress”, but to say “black people have made progress” would mean we deserved to be segregated. The reality is: white people got less crazy.
My father didn’t suddenly deserve to eat with people because he earned it. The people who were denying him his rights got less crazy. And that’s what, progressively, has happened throughout the years. People are now getting less crazy about gay people. People are crazy.
– Chris Rock, CBC Radio One “Q” interview