Desegregating the Airlines

A pretty Long Island Negro named Patricia Banks, 20, was among the fledgling stewardesses in Manhattan's Grace Downs Air Career School's graduating class in September 1956. Capital Airlines, which gets first pick of Grace Downs graduates, interviewed Patricia for a job, marked her application "see again." When Patricia tried to see Capital again, she was told that Capital never reinterviewed. She took her case to New York's State Commission Against Discrimination, watchdog of New York's civil rights law, passed at Governor Tom Dewey's urging 15 years ago.

Last week Capital was ordered to hire Miss Banks, after an informal attempt failed to persuade the line to give her a stewardess' job and thereby avoid a legal order--as TWA had done two years ago when a similar complaint was filed against it. Capital not only denied discrimination against Miss Banks, but argued that New York State had no jurisdiction since Capital's home office is in Washington, D.C.

The commission brushed both arguments aside. It found that Capital's chief hostess, who interviewed Patricia, had marked her application "B+," which means "accepted for future employment." "The chief hostess," found the commission, "changed it to 'see again' at the direction of the director of passenger service." The commission's conclusion: "We entertain no doubt that Miss Banks would have been reinterviewed and employed, had she been white." Since Capital does a "substantial amount of its business in the State of New York." and conducts some 22 pre-employment procedures there, the commission argued that it has jurisdiction. Capital got 30 days in which to hire Patricia Banks as a stewardess or face contempt proceedings in New York courts. Of all the major U.S. airlines, only TWA and Mohawk have hired Negro stewardesses: two all told.

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