Patricia Banks was one of the first Black flight attendants in the United States. The collection contains one video, dated 1997, in which Banks talks about winning the case against Capital Airlines to be hired in 1960.
Patricia Banks was one of the first Black flight attendants in the United States.
After graduating from Grace Downs Air Career School in 1956, Banks learned that airline companies did not hire Black flight attendants. She filed a lawsuit in 1957 through the New York State Commission Against Discrimination and won a case against Capital Airlines (which later merged with United Airlines). The airline hired her in 1960.
Journalist and nurse Ruth Carol Taylor was the first African American flight attendant in the United States in 1958.
The collection consists of one video dated 1997, in which NBC Nightly News aired a Black History Month segment about Patricia Banks's life and her successful legal case to become one of the country's first Black flight attendants.
Patricia N. Banks Edmiston, 2001.
Collection inventoried by Stacey Doyle Ference. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist; and Shola Lynch, curator. Finding aid published in 2024.
See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Patricia Banks collection, Sc MG 697.