1966 Archives - The Race Card Project

First Black Female Air Traffic Controller

March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 1966, CA, Captain's Mast, Female Air Traffic Controller, first black, first experience, San Diego, Sandra Durbin, US Navy

Sandra Durbin,
San Diego, CA.

It was hard. I was smart, black and female, 18 years old in 1966. I joined the U S Navy, because they promised me college. I give the govenment 3 years, and they give me four years of college. It was horrible. I was given a Captain’s Mast, at 8:30 PM, on a Saturday, when I checked aboard the base for “A” school, in Glynco GA. I had to go to a blimp hanger, late at night,and the people holding the mast, remained in the dark, and me seated in a single chair, with lights on my face. I felt like I was in a bad movie. I had done nothing wrong, except show up for school. I was accused of cheating in boot camp on the exams. They actually said that black people and especially women were not smart enough to be Air Traffic Controllers. The only reason I was not kicked out of school, before I even started, was because I had interned for Senator Tunney of California, and told my unknown inquistors that I would call him on the following Monday to find out if what they were doing was legal. I was then informed that it was an unoffical Captain’s Mast, and that there would be no record of it ever. I finished AC school, 3rd in my class, and was denied Radar School because I was a female (and I am sure being black played a part), because they said they did not want to waste the school on a woman who “might” get pregnant. I made 3rd Class Air Traffic Controller before I turned 19, which is really rare. But I was determined to prove that I was really intelligent, and not a cheater. Being black and female, in the service, during the late 60’s was a challenge, but I would not trade the experience because it made me a stronger person. And because of my service to my country, I am proud to say that I am the first female in my immediate family to finish both high school and college. Would I do it all over again? Yes. Do I wish it would have been easier? Absolutely.

No black kids in my school

November 26, 2018November 26, 2018 1954, 1966, black kid, Howard T. Uhal, impression, island of white, James A. Garfield, Mentor, OH, president, public school, school, school system, sea of diversity, white

Howard T. Uhal,
Mentor, OH.

I attended twelve years of public school in the town of Mentor, Ohio, birthplace of President James A. Garfield. To the best of my knowledge, there was not a single black kid in the school system, and perhaps none in the entire town. This was in the 1954-1966 time frame. We were an island of white in a sea of diversity. I did not get the impression that our parents were worried about that.

Black or white everyone uses tools

April 10, 2018August 18, 2020 13, 1966, behind the scenes, Black, computer, electronic devices, everyone, first experience, High technology, it, low technology, OR, Portland, tech, technical forum, technician, Ted Mittelstaedt, tools

Ted Mittelstaedt,
Portland, OR.

I was born in 1966 and by age 13 I knew how to solder and by age 15 I was building electronic devices from schematics. By age 20 I had taken apart and put back together several different kinds of computers and written code in assembly language. I also have a complete garage and can disassemble and reassemble a car engine if need be. Today my job is the care and feeding of computer networks, I’m the guy who’s work behind the scenes allows you to even have this website.

You folks need to understand that modern high technology could not function today without the millions of words of technical data created by technicians and posted on technical forums and used by technicians. This is not the idle musings of the Facebook crowd this is the down and dirty of machine code and how it works and how hardware works. This is how techs are able to repair critical technical gear that the manufacturer may have gone into bankruptcy 10 years ago yet the gear is still in service. It is how the operating system this website runs on was written and the software that makes up the webserver was written.

And these techs are scattered all over the world, both genders, and every “race” imaginable.

High Technology is just like Low Technology, it is a tool for humans to do things. The iPhone is the same as an automobile, or a flyswatter, or a hammer or a saucepan. They are all tools. Using tools is what Humans do. And every human in the world, no matter what race, no matter whether they are a dark skinned aborigine in the Australian Outback using a stick, or a white skinned plastic surgeon in Cleveland driving a BMW, is using a tool.

My business is keeping those tools running, and fixing them when they break. And that is the business of every tech in the world. Do you really think for one second that any of us care about the race or gender or any of that nonsense of another tech who helps us do this?

When discussing things like police traffic stops of minorities people forget that those cops are dependent on the technology of their cars that was mostly made by yellow-skinned people in China. The cops who think they are “making the streets safer by scaring off those minority gangs” couldn’t do that without their tech which was created by those same minorities.

The very bullets that were used to kill minorities in some of the recent high profile crimes were made in a factory staffed with minorities.

When discussing things like population demographics in the US changing to minorities becoming the majority, people conveniently ignore that there are so many more people today, that we are now utterly dependent on high tech advanced agriculture to grow enough food to feed everybody. If your definition of “taking back America” is making America like it was 50 years ago – mostly white – then I hope you enjoy starving because if we really went back to doing things in America the way we did them 50 years ago then we wouldn’t grow enough food for the population and everyone would starve.

The reality is that this race discussion is pointless. Race only matters today to people with the luxury to pretend the world is 1000 times simpler than it really is and who have no real clue about how things really work in the world. And as proof of that this very website – which wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the combined contributions of every race and gender working together for years – has the hubris to setup a “discussion” as though there was any choice in the matter.

Only a liberal arts graduate who probably doesn’t even know how to do her own oil changes could think up something like this site.

Jewish woman married black man. Disowned.

March 19, 2015 1966, black man, disowned, divorce, Gloria Gordon, interracial marriage, Jewish, married, NM, Santa Fe

Gloria Gordon,
Santa Fe, NM.

Married in 1966. Divorced after 11 years.

1966, embarrassed myself saying the “N” word.

August 13, 2013August 13, 2013 @UmichStudents @michele_norris, 1966, embarrassed, MN, N word, Pamela Renkel, St. Paul, those people

Pamela Renkel
St. Paul, MN

I was 19, in a small, local technical school, with two newly transplanted students from Detroit, who were African American. I was having a conversation and used the “N” word while describing a racially charged event, which my sister was involved in. As the word came out of my mouth, I was looking at those two your women, and I almost choked. I was so embarrassed that I said it, and NEVER used this derogatory word again. The “N” word was commonly used by my father as I was growing up! It took a few more years before he finally found it distasteful! This was a sore subject in our household for a number of years. A year or so later, when I had my daughter, I bought her an African American doll, and bought the same for my nieces and nephews as they came along, as a way to try to make a difference.

My parents are 91 and 92, and I feel they is still harbor some distain for others not like themselves, and it is my Mother more than my Father. Our family now has great grand children that are bi-racial, and tri-racial who are very much loved, so those racial conversations my Mother used to try to engage me in, are much less often. Even though I’m 66, my Mother can still push my buttons with conversations which typically start with “I don’t know why those people……….”. When I hear it, I give her the choice to either stop the comments, or I will leave.
The emotion of that 1966, embarrassing moment struck my soul!

Struggling souls behind different skin colors

July 22, 2013 1966, blind, blind man, CA, Color, interracial dialo, Jack Faulkner, Oakland, psychiatric clinic, skin, soul, struggling

Jack Faulkner
Oakland, CA

Atttended an “interracial dialogue” in a psychiatric clinic in 1966. The two sides, black and white were polarized. Finally, a blind man said he had been lisrening carefully but could not understand what the conflict was all about. He concluded: “You see, I am a member of a third minority.”

I am more than my race.

July 15, 2013 1966, 1967, Cestau Clark, FL, Florida, interracial marriage, KY, law, Louisville, More, Race

Cestau Clark
Louisville, KY

It was against the law for my parents to be married in 1966. I was born in 1967. Florida was unkind to us then. But somehow, I still believe people are generally good. Race was a card I had to deal with everyday. Everyone wanted to know what I was…Well, I’m just me. I call myself “generic” now. I can look like several races of people. It really doesn’t matter now like it did then. I’m happy and that is what matters. I don’t answer race questions anymore on applications etc…I want it to be excluded. My heritage matters to my family. My color is just a reflection of DNA from many different people. Each one my children are a different hue, different eye color (same dad). I raised them to be good people and that is what matters.

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