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Black tourists find a red carpet waiting

On the move
with
Earl Dowdy
News Travel Editor
[[image – black & white photograph of the face of Earl Dowdy]]

It's a long way from the back of the bus to the first class section of an airliner.

That's how far black travelers have come in the 11 years since a Supreme Court ruling struck down the last vestige of racial segregation on every form of public transportation.

More than that, many are moving into key positions at the executive and operations levels of the travel industry — revealing to their white colleagues what it was like to have been on the outside looking in.

Some, whose only hope of sitting at the front of the bus in former times was to become a bus driver, now are jet pilots. Others, who once had to use segregated washrooms and drinking fountains, stand tall today behind the ticket counters in Deep South terminals.

And how long ago was it that black stewardesses began flying in such numbers that they no longer needed to feel like "tokens" — four or five years? Nor, for that matter, do they need to look like Lena Horne or Diahann Carroll to be hired anymore.

Black travel, in brief, has become a boom market almost overnight and the industry is scrambling like mad to make up for lost time.

THIS WAS THE THEME of a recent symposium on that subject held by the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) with black travel experts. The panel included James O. Plinton, an Eastern Airlines vice president; Leonard L. Burns, general manager of a large New Orleans tour agency, and Ben Carruthers, travel director of "Tuesday" magazine.

SATW President Alfred S. Borcover, of the Chicago Tribune, noted that black readers represent an increasingly large share of the writer's audience, and want to know more about places where they will be welcome — "not as blacks, but simply as tourists, as they should be."

Yet the travel industry, he said, has been remiss about spreading its message that blacks are increasingly welcome everywhere.

Other writers agreed, saying the airlines, cruise ship companies and resort operators have done little yet to illustrate in their publicity material that color bars no longer exist in many places once thought to be for whites only.

Few send out photos showing black and white tourists on the same plane, ship or beach, one SATW member complained, "and

[[image – black & white photograph of a man wearing a short sleeve dress shirt with tie, as well as a big smile, and carrying a 3-foot tall trophy; to the left, a group of approximately 8 football players in uniform, helmets off – player number 72 and 43 standing in the front of the crowd; to the right of the photo stands a woman wearing a black turtleneck sweater, a simple necklace, and a printed skirt; to her right are two men in business suits, one carrying a book or magazine in his left hand; behind them can be seen several more football players]]

[[caption]] Eastern Airlines, one of the more Community conscious of the carriers, has established a program of Community Communications which involves total involvement of their personnel with Community efforts all over the world. The pictures on these pages represent Eastern Airlines involvement at the Annual Morgan College, Grambling College Football Classic held in memory of the late Whitney M. Young, Jr., of the National Urban League, in its Presentation of the Annual Best Team Award Trophy to Eddie Robinson of Grambling and the Best Player Award to Richard Paul of Grambling by Mrs. Joan Bryan of Eastern Airlines, Mahlon Puryear of the Urban League and Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones of Grambling College look on.

The other pictures show Mr. James Plinton of Eastern Airlines receiving an award for the Community Relations Program of Eastern Airlines, from the Reverend Bishop Henry of New York City. [[/caption]]