*The Smithsonian Channel recently aired a documentary that tells the stories of NASA’s first Black American astronauts and the country’s race with Russia to put a person of color in space.
“Black in Space: Breaking the Color Barrier” explores the personal stories of Edward Dwight, a U.S. Air Force pilot, Guion Bluford, the first Black American to go to space, Frederick Gregory, the first Black American to pilot and command a NASA mission and later NASA’s first deputy administrator of color, and Ronald McNair, who died in the Challenger disaster, per houstonchronicle.com.
“They were the first, the elite of the elite,” Laurens Grant, the documentary’s director, told AP.
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Ronald McNair completed nine successful space missions before dying tragically in the Challenger disaster.
Hear his story and those of other African American space pioneers on Black in Space: Breaking the Color Barrier – https://t.co/4eRNWDZec5 #blackhistorymonth #blackinspace pic.twitter.com/OjGZtJQjfJ
— Smithsonian Channel Plus (@SCPlus) February 7, 2020
Produced in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Black In Space” highlights the impact of America’s Civil Rights movement on the Space Race and the scramble to put the first Black astronaut into orbit.
This is the untold story of the decades-long battle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to be the first superpower to bring diversity to the skies, told by the Black astronauts and their families, who were part of this little known chapter of the Cold War.
via The AP:
Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight was selected for a trainee program and became an overnight hero in the black press. However, the NASA program did not select him for the astronaut program.
U.S. Air Force officer Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. was chosen. The U.S. Air Force selected the Chicago-born Lawrence as the first African American astronaut, and he may have made it to the moon. Unfortunately, Lawrence died after his F-104 Starfighter crashed in 1967 at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
Guion Bluford would become the first African American astronaut. The aerospace engineer made it to space in 1983 as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger.
Frederick Gregory, now 79, recalled in an interview with The Associated Press, looking down at Earth while floating in space.
“Your concept of neighbor changes significantly,” he said. “I began saying, ‘Hey, this is a world, and we are all part of it.’ When you go to space, you don’t see boundaries on the ground. You wonder, why do these people dislike each other. Your concept of what your home is changes.”
“Black In Space” shows how the former Soviet Union beat the U.S. sending Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez into orbit. He was the first Latin American and first person of African descent to reach space.
WATCH:
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