Book spotlights responses to racial equity

Lockheed has been one of America’s largest corporations and most important defense contractors from World War II to the present day (since 1995 as part of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company). During the postwar era, its executives enacted complicated business responses to demands by African Americans for equality.

Based on the papers of a personnel executive, the memoir of an African American employee, interviews and company publications, Lockheed, Atlanta, and the Struggle for Racial Integration takes a look inside the corporate management of racial equity in a major American firm. Written by Randall L. Patton, a professor of history at Kennesaw State University, the book offers a unique narrative history and inside perspective on the evolution of equal employment and affirmative action policies at Lockheed Aircraft’s massive Georgia plant from the early 1950s through the early 1980s.

Patton provides a rare, perhaps unique, account of African American struggle and management response, set within the context of the regional and national struggles for civil rights.