First Black man who trained as astronaut finally going to space at 90 on Bezos rocket
Last edited Sun May 19, 2024, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: UK Independent
11 hours ago
Ed Dwight, the first Black man to train to be an astronaut, never ended up making it to space 60 years ago. But that will all change this weekend.
On Sunday, Mr Dwight, aged 90, will join five others on a Blue Origin flight, the space travel company owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. The 11-minute flight will take them into zero gravity, so passengers can experience weightlessness and view the Earth’s horizon, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Mr Dwight, who grew up in Kentucky under segregation, joined the Air Force in 1953. The decision lead him to almost becoming one of the country’s first astronauts. In 1961, the US established the Aerospace Research Pilot School. President John F Kennedy’s administration urged them to recruit a Black Air Force officer, and soon afterwards, Mr Dwight received a letter inviting him to attend, the Associated Press reported.
While there, he experienced racism from his colleagues including First Commandant of the school, Chuck Yaeger, who died in 2020. “They were all instructed to give me the cold shoulder,” Mr Dwight said of his fellow trainees earlier this year. “Yeager had a meeting with the students and the staff in the auditorium and announced it — that Washington was trying to shove this N-word down our throats.”
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ed-dwight-space-blue-origin-b2547370.html
UPDATE - he just disembarked about 10 minutes ago!
= new reply since forum marked as read
I wish he would be more accepting of Unions at his hellish warehouses, etc. 
Last edited Sun May 19, 2024, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)
Smithsonian on Ed Dwight ( who also is a remarkable sculptor):
Ed Dwight Was Going to Be the First African American in Space. Until He Wasn’t
The Kennedy administration sought a diverse face to the space program, but for reasons unknown, the pilot was kept from reaching the stars
Shareef Jackson
Smithsonian Magazine, February 18, 2020
In the early 1960s, U.S. Air Force pilot Ed Dwight was drowning in mail. “I received about 1,500 pieces of mail a week, which were stored in large containers at Edwards Air Force Base. Some of it came to my mother in Kansas City,” Dwight, now 86, recalls. Fans from around the world were writing to congratulate Dwight on becoming the first African American astronaut candidate. “Most of my mail was just addressed to Astronaut Dwight, Kansas City, Kansas.”
The letters, however, were premature. Dwight would never get the opportunity to go to space—despite the publicity and hype—for reasons that remain unclear even to this day.
Dwight was working at the time as a test pilot at Edwards in the Mojave Desert of California, the U.S. Air Force’s premier experimental flight base and a pathway to entering the astronaut corps of NASA. He trained in the Aerospace Research Pilot School, run by aviation icon Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. Edwards holds a legendary status, then and now, as the premier flight test facility of the Air Force, where the likes of Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper, two of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, and Neil Armstrong, selected in the second group of astronauts, trained as test pilots in experimental jets over the vast high desert that often served as an impromptu runway. During his time at Edwards, Dwight flew jets such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic aircraft capable of soaring into the high atmosphere where the pilot could observe the curvature of the Earth.
“The first time you do this it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what the hell? Look at this,’” Dwight recently told the New York Times. “You can actually see this beautiful blue layer that the Earth is encased in. It’s absolutely stunning.”
Snip…
Around this time, Kennedy encouraged leaders in all the military branches to work to improve diversity among their officers. When the first group of NASA astronauts were selected in 1959, the nation’s military officer pilots, initially the only people who could apply to be astronauts, included no people of color. But as Murrow advocated for a black astronaut, Dwight was rising to the rank of captain in the Air Force, armed with an aeronautics degree from Arizona State University and enough flying hours to qualify for the flight test school at Edwards.
Continues…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ed-dwight-first-african-american-space-until-wasnt-180974215/
After the assassination of President Kennedy, Capt. Dwight fell off the track. He would become a sculptor, like all he worked to accomplish, one of excellence.
The International Memorial to the Underground Railroad
I am old. I have seen with my own eyes: After his death, a lot of the progress he made was lost. Ask Abraham Bolden. He was personally selected by JFK to serve as the first African American on the Secret Service White House detail. He reported the Secret Service, including members of its leadership, didn't like African Americans — or President Kennedy — in 1963.
Former U.S. Secret Service Agent Abraham BOLDEN was the first African American Secret Service agent to serve in the White House, personally appointed and literally hand-picked by President John F. Kennedy to the White House detail. Agent Abraham Bolden reported overt racism by his fellow agents and outright hostility toward the "n------loving president," quoting fellow Secret Service agents on the JFK detail.
In addition to enduring all manner of personal indignities, he was concerned at the lack of professionalism in those assigned to protect the president and reported his concerns. He was told, "OK. Thanks" by his superiors. When the problems weren't addressed, Bolden requested transfer back to the Secret Service office in Chicago.
President Biden recently pardoned Abraham Bolden
The story of a man who told the truth:
After 45 Years, a Civil Rights Hero Waits for Justice
Thom Hartmann
June 12, 2009 11:52 AM
A great miscarriage of justice has kept most Americas from learning about a Civil Rights pioneer who worked with President John F. Kennedy. But there is finally a way for citizens to not only right that wrong, but bring closure to the most tragic chapter of American presidential history.
After an outstanding career in law enforcement, Abraham Bolden was appointed by JFK to be the first African American presidential Secret Service agent, where he served with distinction. He was part of the Secret Service effort that prevented JFK's assassination in Chicago, three weeks before Dallas. But Bolden was framed by the Mafia and arrested on the very day he went to Washington to tell the Warren Commission staff about the Chicago attempt against JFK.
Bolden was sentenced to six years in prison, despite glaring problems with his prosecution. His arrest resulted from accusations by two criminals Bolden had sent to prison. In Bolden's first trial, an apparently biased judge told the jury that Bolden was guilty, even before they began their deliberations. Though granted a new trial because of that, the same problematic judge was assigned to oversee Bolden's second trial, which resulted in his conviction. Later, the main witness against Bolden admitted committing perjury against him. A key member of the prosecution even took the fifth when asked about the perjury. Yet Bolden's appeals were denied, and he had to serve hard time in prison, and today is considered a convicted felon.
After the release of four million pages of JFK assassination files in the 1990s, it became clear that Bolden -- and the official secrecy surrounding the Chicago attempt against JFK -- were due to National Security concerns about Cuba, that were unknown to Bolden, the press, Congress, and the public not just in 1963, but for the next four decades.
SNIP...
Abraham Bolden paid a heavy price for trying to tell the truth about events involving the man he was sworn to protect -- JFK -- that became mired in National Security concerns. Bolden still lives in Chicago, and has never given up trying to clear his name.
Will Abraham Bolden live to finally see the justice so long denied to him?
CONTINUED...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thom-hartmann/after-45-years-a-civil-ri_b_213834.html
After the assassination, he went to Washington on his own dime and reported what he saw to the Warren Commission. For his trouble -- and despite an exemplary record as a Brinks detective, Illinois State Trooper, and Secret Service agent -- Bolden was framed by the government using a paid informant's admitted perjury and spent a long time in prison. The government also drugged him and put him into psychiatric hospitals. His real crime was telling the truth.
