"Ruth Carol Taylor."(born December 1931).

Journalist and nurse became the first African-American airline attendant in the United States

when she joined Mohawk Airlines in 1958.While is most commonly known for her achievement in the airline industry,she spent much of her career as an activist for minority and women's rights.Ruth was born in Boston,Massachusetts to Ruth Irene Powell Taylor,a nurse,and William Edison Taylor,a barber.When Ruth was young,her family moved moved to a farm in upstate New York.She attended Elmira College in New York and in 1955 graduated from the Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City as a registered nurse.After working for several years as a nurse,Ruth decided to break the color barrier existed in the career of airline stewardesses.Now called flight attendants at the time were hired primarily based on physical attractiveness and height/weight conformity.Wishing to be the first African American stewardess,she applied to Trans World Airline (TWA) but was rejected and subsequently filed a complaint against the company with the New York State Commission on Discrimination.About the same time,the regional carrier Mohawks Airlines expressed interest in hiring minority flight attendants,Ruth applied for a position.She was selected from 800 African-Americans applicants and was hired in December 1957.On February 11,1958,she became the first African-American flight attendant on a flight from Ithaca to New York City.Three months,Margaret Grant was hired amid pressure by TWA as the first African-American flight  attendant for a major airline carrier.In a 1997 Jet interview Ruth admitted that she had no long-term career aspirations as a flight attendant but merely wanted to break the color barrier.Six months after making aviation history, she married Rex Legall and was forced to resign from Mohawk due to restrictions that flight attendants remain single.The couple lived in the British West Indies and then London but divorced shortly after the birth of their daughter.Ruth moved to Barbados,where she founded the country's first professional  nursing journal and became active in civil rights.A son was born there in 1969.Ruth returned to New York in 1977 to resume work as a nurse and co-founded the Institute for Inter Racial Harmony,which developed a test to measure racist attitudes Known the Racist Quotient.In 1985 she wrote The Little Black Book:Black Male Survival in America,a survival guide to help young African-American men succeed in a racist society.In 2008,fifty years after her historic flight that broke the color for airline attendants,Ruth accomplishment was formally recognized by the New York State Assembly.Now using the name Carol Taylor,the activists lives in Brooklyn,New York.