Captain David Ellsworth Harris
( December 22, 1934)
The first black American commercial airline pilot
The first to achieve the rank of Pilot Captain for a major U.S. commercial airline.
Dave Harris was the first African American in the cockpit of a major passenger airline. Harris joined American Airlines in 1964 flying the DC-6 aircraft. After rejections from several other major airlines at the time, Harris wanted to avoid any misunderstanding down the road. Following his interview with American, Harris recalls, “I felt compelled to tell the interviewer I was black.” The chief pilot who conducted the interview responded, “This is American Airlines and we don’t care if you’re black, white, or chartreuse, we only want to know, can you fly the plane?” He retired from America in 1994 as a captain, flying America’s largest airplane at that time, the wide-body MD-11. A humble man, Harris made this statement at a ceremony in his honor: “I’m honored and humbled by this award … but the reality is that there were 500 pilots — Tuskegee Airmen — who were qualified for airline jobs when they left the service. None of them received an opportunity to sit in a cockpit. There is no way I should be the first; it should’ve happened long before 1964.” Harris was featured in a Smithsonian Museum exhibit called “Black Wings.” The American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has a permanent exhibit honoring Harris. He remains an active member of the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP).
Captain Harris was born on December 22, 1934, in Columbus, Ohio. His father was Wilbur Rothchild Harris Sr. (June 4, 1900 – July 31, 1989) and his mother was Ruth A. Estis Harris (March 19, 1903 – September 22, 1961). He had one brother, Wilbur Rothchild “Wil” Harris Jr. (November 1, 1932 – January 7, 2020), who served as a U.S. Army Honor Guard at Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Harris’s grandfather was Reverend Henry Estis (January 5, 1863 – May 20, 1948), a formerly enslaved African American from Lunenburg County, Virginia, and founder and pastor of Chillicothe, Ohio’s Zion Baptist Church.
Harris grew up in an integrated neighborhood in Columbus, where he attended University School, a private high school.
In 1957, Harris graduated from Ohio State University, with a B.S. degree in education. While a University student there, he was rejected twice for Ohio States’ advanced Air Force ROTC program on racial grounds. He was eventually granted admission, and once in the program, rose to the rank of cadet colonel
In 1958, Harris joined the U.S. Air Force (USAF), following the receipt of a Reserve Officers Training Corps commission as a 2nd lieutenant.
Following his completion of basic flight training in Orlando, Florida, Harris graduated from advanced flight training at Big Spring, Texas, flying Boeing B-47 Stratojets there. He was then assigned to a number of bases across the U.S., including New York, Florida Maine, and Texas, He was also assigned to an airbase in England, where the U.S. Air Force maintained vigilance against the Soviet Union.[4] During the Cold War, Harris piloted the B-47 which was armed with nuclear weapons and the B-52 for the Strategic Air Command (SAC).
After struggling with race-based housing discrimination during his assignments, Harris left the military on December 1, 1964, to better support his wife and two children. He was discharged with the rank of Captain.
Before entering civilian life, Harris interviewed with several major U.S. commercial airlines for a pilot’s job without success, largely denied a position on racial grounds. Although Harris was a light-complexioned African American who could pass as white, Harris closed all of his application letters with the declarative statement “I’m married, I have two children and I’m black.” In 1964, Harris interviewed with American Airlines. To avoid what Harris deemed to be an inevitable denial based on his race, Harris informed the interviewer that he was African American. The chief pilot conducting the interview responded: “This is American Airlines and we don’t care if you’re black, white, or chartreuse, we only want to know, can you fly the plane?”
On December 3, 1964, two days after leaving the USAF, Harris became the first African American hired as a commercial airline pilot for a major U.S. commercial airline, American Airlines. Following the completion of nine-week training, Harris became an American Airlines co-pilot. Three years later, in 1967 Harris became the first African American male to achieve the rank of Pilot Captain for a major U.S. commercial airline.
While flying at American Airlines, Harris piloted a number of different types of commercial aircraft including the Boeing 747, Boeing 727, Boeing 767, the Airbus A300, the Douglas DC-6, the Douglas DC-7, the Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft, the BAC One-Eleven and the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, American Airlines’ largest commercial aircraft during Harris’ career.
Harris retired in 1994, after flying for American Airlines for a total of 30 years.
Harris is considered a pioneer black American commercial airline pilot. A year after Harris was hired by American, Western Airlines hired African American pilot Fred Pitcher; United Airlines hired African American pilot Bill Norwood. Eventually, other major U.S. commercial airlines would hire its inaugural slate of African American pilots including Eastern Airlines’ Les Morris, TWA’s John Gordon, Delta Airlines’ Sam Grady, Northwest Airlines’ Woodie Fountain, DHL’s Ivory Carter and Pan Am’s M. Perry Jones.
1967 saw Harris meet civil rights leader and National Urban League executive director Whitney Young on one of Harris’ flights in Indianapolis, Indiana Exiting his cockpit, Harris introduced himself to Young and thanked him for helping African Americans get jobs in various fields including aviation.
Young drowned in Lagos, Nigeria four years later, while attending an international conference. Young’s wife, Margaret, asked American Airlines to locate the African-American pilot Young met years earlier. Margaret wanted American Airlines the pilot in question to fly her husband’s remains back to the United States. When American Airlines offered an all-African-American flight and cabin crew, Margaret balked: “That’s not the way of the Urban League. It should be black and white together.” Honoring Margaret’s wishes, Harris flew Young’s body from Lagos, Nigeria, to New York City, New York.
Harris’ wife is Lynne Purdy Harris, and the couple have two children.
Since his retirement, Harris has resided in Beverly, Massachusetts, and in Country Haven, an Airpark/fly-in community near Trenton, South Carolina.
He flies a single-engine Socata Trinidad at Country Haven.
Memberships
Harris served as the president of the Organization of Black Airline Pilots (OBAP). He has also retained his membership with the Negro Airmen International (NAI).
Honors
The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum features Harris and his uniform, hat, and other memorabilia in its “Black Wings in Aviation” exhibit.
The American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth, Texas features Harris in its permanent exhibit.
During a ceremony honoring Harris as the first African American commercial airline pilot, Harris remarked: “I’m honored and humbled by this award … but the reality is that there were 500 pilots Tuskegee Airmen who were qualified for airline jobs when they left the service. None of them received an opportunity to sit in a cockpit. There is no way I should be the first; it should’ve happened long before 1964.”
References