Marlon Green

Marlon D. Green (June 6, 1929 – July 6, 2009) was the first African American pilot hired by a major passenger airline in the United States. He was born in El Dorado, Arkansas. Following a unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1963, he was hired by Continental Airlines and flew with them from 1965 to 1978.

Green's Parents

Marlon's father, Mickinley Green, was born in 1900. Mickinley Green married his wife Lucy on April 10, 1921. He and Lucy wanted children, but there were major complications. Lucy had given birth to seven babies, but none had lived more than a year. Then, in 1928, Rudolph Valentino Green was born and survived. And then, as if to make up for all the infant deaths, there came a profusion of babies: Marlon (June 6, 1929); Jean Evelyn (1933); James Zell (1936); and Allen David (1941)-all were born in the bedroom of the Smith Avenue house.

Both parents were better-than-average cooks; McKinley enjoyed canning pears, and Lucy was known for her meatloaf but, for some unknown reason, she was unable to get biscuits to rise. When he got a little older, son James recalled that "the kitchen was pretty much Lucy's domain. If 'Daddy Kinney' ever questioned 'Mama Lucy's' cooking, she would turn on him and he would take his iced tea and retreat. 'C'mon kids-let's leave your mama alone and sit on the porch,' he'd say. He spent a lot of time on the porch." Just as the kitchen at home was Lucy's lair, corporal punishment was also her prerogative, and she was not shy about administering discipline with a switch, hairbrush, or bare hand. Marlon recalled that if his father didn't approve of something, he would never spank the children but rather respond with a quiet, "You ain't gonna be a fool all your life, are you?." "Daddy was a very encouraging person," reported James Green. "He didn't believe in corporal punishment. Mama made up for whatever he didn't dispense in that category. Mother was a strict disciplinarian."

During the Depression, life in El Dorado was difficult for the Green family, as well as for most of the other Negro families in the neighborhood. In 1936 or 1937, McKinley made the hard decision to seek work up North, and set off for Lansing, Michigan, where he found a job at the Drop Forge Company. For seven months, he sent as much of his meager paycheck home as he could as he could, and then returned. Job opportunties hadn't improved much in his absence, so he went to work for a wealthy white dentist in town, Dr. J. Shelton Rushing. It was a position kept for the next forty years. He worked long hours-from 7:00a.m. to 7:00p.m.-and, because he had no car, walked from South Smith Avenue to Dr. Rushing's fancier home at 1222 North Madison, over a mile to the north. Marlon recalled that his father was "in charge of Dr. Rushing's household staff that included a handyman around the property; one woman who would be classified as a maid and when they had parties, they'd hire help as necessary." Dr. Rushing also owned vacation properties in Hollywood, Florida; Mason, Texas; Aspen, Colorado; and a houseboat on the Ouachita River. McKinley Green supervised the help in all the houses. Marlon said, "My dad was in charge of the cooking at Dr. Rushing's home. There were times when he didn't do all the cooking himself, but he was in charge of the people who did. He was the majordomo- I like that word. He had many skills. He was pretty outstanding as a cook, and he could tell you the name of almost every flower or plant that grew in southern Arkansas. There was one time when he won a prize for crocheting or knitting at the county fair." Brother James recalled that Dr. Rushing was one of the wealthiest men in El Dorado. "Dr. Rushing was a dentist, but he rarely practiced because he was too busy managing his millions of dollars of oil investments; he had several other dentists who worked for him." James Green also remembered being very unhappy every November because his father would go down to Texas with the doctor's entourage - a trip that always seemed to fall on his birthday. "I was the only one in the family whose birthday would take place when Daddy wasn't there," he said. "They'd come back with all the venison from the deer hunt. We got fed up with all the venison - so Daddy would give it to other people in the community. He was a very generous man."^[1]

Air Force career

His last posting was flying the SA-16 Albatross with the 36th Air Rescue Squadron at Johnson Air Base in Tokyo, Japan.

Airline career

He joined Continental in 1965, flying Vickers Viscounts out of Denver, and flew with Continental until 1978, becoming a Captain in 1966. Green's victory paved the way for minority pilots to be hired by commercial airlines.

Death and family

Green died aged 80 in Denver, Colorado. He was divorced and is survived by his three daughters and three sons.^[2] In 2010 Continental Airlines named a Boeing 737 after him.^[3]

References

1. ^ Turbulence Before Takeoff
2. ^ Pilot fought discrimination
3. ^ Buggs, Shannon. "Milestone in Diversity / Continental Airlines names jetliner after trailblazing pilot." Houston Chronicle. February 9, 2010. Retrieved on February 9, 2010.

External links

• Association of Black Airline Pilots
• Time Magazine, May 3, 1963
• Marlon Green avstop.com
• Marlon Green Discrimination GREEN V. CONTINENTAL AIR LINES avstop.com
• Jill E. BROWN-HILTZ v UNITED AIRLINES, December 11, 1997 avstop.com
• Other Notable Black Airline Pilots avstop.com
• "Honoring an icon", New Hope Flight Training Academy
• Turbulence Before Takeoff - The Life & Times of Aviation Pioneer Marlon Dewitt Green
• Continental Airlines Boeing 737-824 dedicated to Captain Marlon Green.

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Name	Green, Marlon
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Date of birth	June 6, 1929
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Date of death	July 6, 2009
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