Tag Archives: United States

The Desegregation of Airports in the American South

Posted on by
4

The fact that transportation was a segregated business in the American South for many decades of the twentieth century is well known. Many older African Americans who grew up in the South painfully remember the time when black passengers had to sit in the back of busses or use separate train compartments; and when train stations and bus terminals provided separate but mostly unequal facilities such as drinking fountains, restrooms, waiting lounges, and eating facilities for black and white passengers.

Montgomery Airport

A photograph taken in 1961 shows signs indicating the location of the “colored” waiting room at Dannelly Field Airport in Montgomery Alabama. (United States v. City of Montgomery, Case Files, National Archives, Atlanta)

Most people I talk to about my research are surprised to learn that segregation laws also regulated access to air transportation well into the post-war period. While African American travelers enjoyed free and unrestricted access to the aircraft cabin, and the airlines, as federally regulated businesses for the most part, provided non-discriminatory services to all passengers, many airports across the South subscribed to so-called Jim Crow practices. Studies conducted in the mid-1950s by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Congressman Charles Diggs, a Democrat from Michigan, showed that in fact the vast majority of Southern airports provided duplicate waiting rooms, restrooms, and dining facilities in order to separate the races in their use of airport terminal space. To many critical observers such as Diggs it seemed absurd that travelers who were en route to enjoy the most modern means of transportation – the airplane – had to subject themselves to the humiliating experience of having to pass through segregated terminals. Local municipalities, in charge of airport management, in most instances ruthlessly enforced segregation claiming local laws or local customs as the basis for their actions. Eager to preserve the South’s system of institutionalized racism, mayors and airport managers in places such as Jackson, Mississippi, Montgomery, Alabama, and New Orleans, Louisiana, resisted change. They saw no contradiction between the shiny exteriors of their newly constructed modern terminals and the datedness of the rules that structured their use.

Shreveport Airport

A sketch of the floor plan of Greater Shreveport Municipal Airport in Shreveport, Louisiana. The letters F,D, H, and G indicate the location of duplicate restroom facilities. The letter C marks the cafeteria reserved for the use of African Americans. (United States v. City of Shreveport, Case Files, National Archives, Fort Worth).

Opposition to airport segregation began to express itself as early as the 1940s, when National Airport in Washington, D.C. became a target. To many observers it was a particular embarrassment that foreign dignitaries had to pass through segregated spaces at a facility which not only served as the gateway to the nation’s capital but was run by the federal government. The fact that at the time the District of Columbia still practiced segregation did not alleviate the criticism but rather enforced it. Civil rights organizations like the NAACP demanded that something be done and supported Helen Nash’s lawsuit against the airport in 1948. While the courts deliberated the merits of her case, which would ultimately go nowhere, the Administrator of Civil Aeronautics, the head of the federal agency responsible for the regulation of aviation and the administration of the country’s only federally-owned airport, stepped up his act and ordered the integration of the airport by way of amending the Washington National Airport Act in December 1948. Considered a bold regulatory move at the time, it ended discrimination at National Airport and enabled travelers to enjoy terminal services without “segregation as to race, color, or creed.”

Due to the special ownership structure at National Airport, the case could not be used to force airports elsewhere into compliance with the government’s new anti-segregation policy. Instead, the fight against airport segregation had to be fought on a case by case basis. It involved different actors: civil rights organizations, individuals, and federal agencies. And it relied on various strategies: direct action, litigation, and statutory reform. The airport in Atlanta was one of the first airports to be hit by direct action in 1959. Protesters had appeared before city councils and airport authorities. But until then none had staged protests in the locations where black air travelers experienced discrimination. The Atlanta Airport protest was organized by The Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and is best described as an eat-in. It was carried out by an interracial group of activists who went to the segregated Dobbs House restaurant on August 8, 1959 to have lunch together. Unable to receive service for all members of the group they shared the meals they were able to buy and were asked to leave by the airport management thereafter. Although the protest did not lead to the immediate integration of the airport, James R. Robinson, CORE’s executive secretary, encouraged others to imitate it in an interview with the Cleveland Call and Post on August 8, 1959: “We all agreed,” he said, “that it was the best coffee we had ever had – the extra tang of drinking your coffee interracially across the Georgia color bar is highly recommended!” Over the course of the next two years, more airports were targeted by direct action campaigns: CORE staged a “prayer pilgrimage” at the Greenville Airport in South Carolina; a group of CORE Freedom Riders targeted the airport in Tallahassee, Florida; students from the local colleges staged a protest at the Raleigh-Durham Airport. As a result of the protests, all three airports were desegregated.

washington post

Edgar G. Brown, Director of the National Negro Council, and his son Frederick stage a sit-in in the cafeteria at National Airport on December 29, 1948 to protest against segregation. (Washington Post, 30 December 1948)

Direct action protest was flanked by efforts to challenge segregation in the courts. The NAACP had long championed litigation as an effective road to integration and helped plaintiffs bring suit. This resulted in a number of individual damage suits against airport administrators and airport restaurants filed during the 1950s. But litigation was a slow and tedious process that moved from case to case. With an urgency that increased in the late 1950s and early 1960s civil rights leaders also tried to put pressure on the federal government and its regulatory agencies. They demanded the enforcement of existing anti-discrimination provisions in the Federal Airport Act and otherwise called for statutory reform. The Civil Aeronautics Administration, subsequently organized as the Federal Aviation Administration, was slow to react but eventually joined the fight against Jim Crow practices. Its attention focused on the Federal Aid Airport Program, a grant-in-aid program designed to subsidize airport construction across the country, as a way of preventing the construction of segregated airport facilities. Finally in the early 1960s, the Department of Justice weighed in. In 1961, it initiated law suits against the airports in Montgomery, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana. The following year, it filed actions against the airports in Shreveport, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. In the leading case against Montgomery, the Justice Department produced testimony, images, and floor plans to prove that the airport management and the restaurant proprietor had systematically discriminated against black travelers by posting signs and segregating along racial lines the airport’s waiting, eating, drinking, and restroom facilities. The court ruled in favor of the government in January 1962 and ordered the integration of the airport. The case served as the precedent upon which the other cases were decided. Shreveport was the last airport to be forced into compliance. Losing its appeal against court ordered integration, the last signs at an American airport leading travelers to segregated facilities were ordered to come down on July 10, 1963.

If you plan to visit the Museum this summer, you will find more information about the experience of African American air travelers in the America by Air gallery.

Anke Ortlepp is the Verville Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum,  Aeronautics Division.

 

Apollo 11 and the World

Posted on by
2

Forty Years ago on July 20 the world stopped for a brief instant to witness a remarkable accomplishment, the first instance in which humanity set foot on another body in our solar system. It was a remarkable time.

Launch of Apollo 11. NASA Photo.

When the Apollo 11 spacecraft lifted off on July 16, 1969, for the Moon, it signaled a climactic instance in human history. Reaching the Moon on July 20, its Lunar Module—with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard—landed on the lunar surface while Michael Collins orbited overhead in the Apollo 11 command module. Armstrong soon set foot on the surface, telling millions on Earth that it was “one small step for [a] man—one giant leap for mankind.” Aldrin soon followed him out and the two planted an American flag but omitted claiming the land for the U.S. as had been routinely done during European exploration of the Americas, collected soil and rock samples, and set up scientific experiments. The next day they returned to the Apollo capsule overhead and returned to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.

Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission. NASA Photograph.

This flight to the Moon received great scrutiny. “This is the greatest week in the history of the world since Creation,” President Richard M. Nixon enthused upon greeting the Apollo 11 crew when they returned from the Moon. Christopher Flournoy recalled that as a five-year-old when the mission occurred he may not have understood much of what took place but nonetheless was excited by the experience. He remembered his father saying that “he was never more proud of being an American than on the day our flag flew on the Moon.”

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA). NASA Photograph.

One seven-year-old boy from San Juan, Puerto Rico, said of the first Moon landing: “I kept racing between the TV and the balcony and looking at the Moon to see if I could see them on the Moon.” As a fifteen-year-old I sat with friends on the hood of a car looking at the Moon and listening to the astronauts on it. These experiences were typical. “One small step,” hardly; Neil Armstrong nailed it with the second phrase of his famous statement, “one giant leap for mankind.”

Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, Commander of Aollo 11, took this photograph of Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on July 20, 1969. NASA Photograph.

The flight of Apollo 11 met with an ecstatic reaction around the globe, as everyone shared in the success of the astronauts. The front pages of newspapers everywhere suggested how strong the enthusiasm was. NASA estimated that because of nearly worldwide radio and television coverage, more than half the population of the planet was aware of the events of Apollo 11. Although the Soviet Union tried to jam Voice of America radio broadcasts most living there and in other countries learned about the adventure and followed it carefully. Police reports noted that streets in many cities were eerily quiet during the Moon walk as residents watched television coverage in homes, bars, and other public places.

Official congratulations poured in to the U.S. president from other heads of state, even as informal ones went to NASA and the astronauts. All nations having regular diplomatic relations with the United States sent their best wishes in recognition of the success of the mission.

View of Earth from Apollo 17. NASA Photograph.

Those without diplomatic relations with the U.S., such as the People’s Republic of China, made no formal statement on the Apollo 11 flight to the U.S., and the mission was reported only sporadically by its news media because Mao Zedong refused to publicize successes by Cold War rivals. It was not until February 1972 when Nixon flew to China and met with Mao Zedong that the United States established formal diplomatic relations with the nation. China and other nations may soon return to the Moon, fully recognizing the success of the Apollo program. What might that portend for the future?

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Visit the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 web site to share your thoughts and see a list of commemorative events being held at the Museum.