Jackie Robinson: Barred from Flying to First Spring Training

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Jackie Robinson was the first Black major league baseball player, but he was almost prevented from getting to his first spring training in 1946.  

In 1945, Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Robinson to a contract with the Montreal Royals. If he played well there, he had a shot at the majors. But when Robinson left Los Angeles on his way to Daytona Beach, Florida, Jim Crow customs blocked his way.

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Traveling From California

Jackie Robinson signed the Royals contract in the autumn of 1945, and he spent the winter in Los Angeles. He was expected in Daytona Beach in March of 1946. He and his girlfriend Rachel Isum decided they wanted to get married before they left L.A. Two weeks after the wedding, the two of them boarded an American Airlines flight in Los Angeles on their way to Florida.

As Daniel L. Rust explains in his book, Flying Across America, airplanes in the 1940s could not fly across the country without several stops to re-fuel. When they stopped in New Orleans, Robinson and his wife were not permitted to re-board with the rest of the other passengers. In the New Orleans airport, they talked to ticket agents looking for another flight. When time passed and they wanted to buy lunch, they were refused service in the coffee shop.

Finally a ticket agent got them on a flight out of New Orleans, but it didn’t leave until the next day—and it only went as far as Pensacola. With little choice and no place to sleep, the Robinsons waited for the next day’s flight.

In Pensacola, they were greeted with more bad news. The couple was told no airplane would take them. The Robinsons needed to find another means of transportation.

They completed their trip to Daytona Beach, riding in the back of a segregated bus.

No Official Segregation Laws for Airlines

We often read about Rosa Parks’ refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, but very little is written about what happened to Blacks who wanted to board an airplane. They fared no better than Parks did on the buses.

Jim Crow laws, enacted in southern states by the turn of the 20th century prohibited Black and white people from “comingling” on trains, streetcars, and buses. Perhaps because the airline industry was new, there were no similar laws in place for air travel. Nonetheless, it was not easy for an African American to buy a plane ticket.

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If a Black person did manage to buy one, the airline personnel attempted to seat them separately so that white people were not sitting next to them. (Planes must not have been as crowded then.)

Athletes Pushed Color Line

Sports figures were among the early Blacks to push the color line in the air. Professional sports had quickly adapted to using air travel as it meant that game scheduling could be tightened up because it was easier for teams to arrive at their various destinations quickly.

Ten years later, jazz great Ella Fitzgerald fared little better. She won an out-of-court settlement against Pan American Airlines in 1956 when the airline refused to honor her group’s first-class tickets. They put them on the airplane but in coach, instead of the premium seats the popular singer paid for.

Segregated by Custom

Like train stations and bus stations in the South, the airport services in southern states were segregated through the 1950s. Black passengers could not get served in airport restaurants, and there were separate waiting rooms and rest room facilities as well.

In 1960, a Supreme Court ruling specified that airports were subject to federal standards. A study of airports in the South was undertaken. It showed that some form of segregation existed in 7 of the 14 states studied. By the mid-1960s all airports in the United States were officially desegregated.

In 1961, an article in The New York Times (6-28-61) noted that New Orleans airport practices were under review. The Justice Department ruled that the airport violated a nondiscrimination clause they agreed to when they accepted federal funding for the new airport.

The New Orleans manager is quoted as saying, “We will serve Negroes in the coffee shop.” The article goes on to explain: “Until a few days ago Negroes wishing to eat in the International Room or the coffee shop were shunted off to a six-stool snack bar at which cellophane-wrapped cookies, sandwiches, and coffee in paper cups are sold.”

Denied Jobs, Too

Until the late 1950s, Blacks were denied jobs aboard airliners. Until the increasing pressure from the civil rights movement Black applicants were relegated to airport jobs such as skycap (bag handler). The first Black flight attendant was hired by Mohawk Airlines in 1957. Mohawk was a local feeder line in New York. At the time of her hiring, the New York State Commission Against Discrimination had on its docket 17 complaints from “Negro girls” [sic] who had been turned down for stewardess positions.

As Rosa Parks and the civil rights workers knew, change comes about only after many people push back, one incident at a time.

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