First black chief pilot at a major airline retires

DALLAS– Nobody at Southwest told Louis Freeman he would be the first black pilot in the airline’s history when he was hired in 1980.
“It never occurred to me,” Freeman says, “but when I got here I was the only pilot of color — it didn’t take long to figure out.”
Freeman went on to become the first black chief pilot — a management job — at a major U.S. airline. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks to