Marlon Green’s Legal Battle to Break Aviation Barriers
In 1957, former Air Force B-26 pilot Marlon Green applied to multiple airlines without a response. Rather than accept his fate, he took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and won.
By Lisa Tyler, FAA Aviation Safety Office
During the golden age of air travel in the 1950s and 1960s, there appeared to be a kind of nominal equality in the skies. Due to federal antidiscrimination law, airplanes were not segregated spaces, although airports often were. A variety of factors led to a kind of de facto discrimination, both in the cockpit and in the cabin. For instance, the cost of air travel was out of reach for a majority of people, regardless of race. And, while the Tuskegee Airmen and others broke the barriers of color for military pilots, military experience did not often translate into acceptance by commercial airlines. Some black pilots, however, did succeed in flying for commercial enterprises. For example, a cargo airline hired August Martin as a pilot in 1955, and Perry Young joined a helicopter air carrier in 1956.
In 1957, former Air Force pilot of B-26s Marlon Green applied to multiple airlines without response. On his application to Continental Airlines, he decided to leave the “race” box unchecked and did not supply a picture. He made it to the final round of interviews with four other pilots, all white, and all with only a third of his flight hours. Continental chose the four white pilots and rejected Green’s application.
At that point, Green decided that he had a choice. He could accept his fate, or he could fight. He filed a complaint with the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission. The commission ruled in his favor, but Colorado courts overturned them. After six years of appeals, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission petitioned for a hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
On April 22, 1963, six years after he applied to Continental, the Supreme Court upheld the commission’s original decision in Green’s favor, and ordered Continental to enroll Green in a pilot training class to prepare him for company flights.
Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority in the Supreme Court decision, stated “we may assume for present purposes that these provisions [of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958] prohibit racial discrimination against passengers and other customers, and that they protect job applicants or employees from discrimination on account of race.” (Colorado Comm’n v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 372 U.S. 714 (1963))
In September 1964, a Colorado judge ordered the airline to offer Green a job with full seniority and a retroactive pay date of 1957.
Green began flying for Continental in 1965, becoming a captain the following year. He flew for Continental for 14 years before retiring. In 2010, the former airline company dedicated a new Boeing 737 in his honor, with then Continental CEO Jeff Smisek saying, “He sued us. We fought him. We fought him for six years…and on behalf of my 41,000 co-workers, I’m so glad that he won.”
Read more stories about aviation ground-breakers in history.
