![]() ![]() The first astronauts, the Mercury Seven, were all male and white. began pursuing a space program, political leaders were conscious of the image its astronauts could project of American democracy. “I thought these dudes going into space was the craziest thing I had ever heard in my life.”īut as the U.S. But Dwight still wasn’t thinking about becoming an astronaut. In 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, it jolted its Cold War rival into action NASA was formed the following year. He remembers sitting on Satchel Paige’s lap as a child - just one more connection to history running through Dwight’s life. His father, known as Eddie Dwight, played in the Negro Leagues for the Kansas City Monarchs. ![]() “There’s the history we know and the history that’s not had the opportunity to be highlighted.”ĭwight had experience at a young age with that. “Ed is so important for everyone who’s followed after, to recognize and embrace the shoulders they stand on,” says Lisa Cortés, who directed the film with Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. “So to see a Black man in space during that period in time, it would have changed things.” “Space really allows us to realize the hope that’s within all of us as human beings,” Harris says. In “The Space Race,” astronaut Bernard Harris, who became the first Black man to walk in space in 1995, contemplates what a difference it might have made if Dwight had become an astronaut in the tumultuous ’60s. But two decades earlier, Dwight found himself at a fulcrum of 20th Century America, where the space race and the struggle for social justice converged. It wasn’t until 1983 that the first African American, Guion Bluford, reached space. But I’m kind of glad it did because something happened here.” It’s almost amusing to me that all this furor could come up. “Now it comes back full force as one of these I-didn’t-know stories. He’s off the map,’” Dwight said in an interview by Zoom from his home in Denver. “When I left, everyone said, ‘Well, that’s over. The new National Geographic documentary “The Space Race,” which premieres Monday on National Geographic Channels and streams Tuesday on Disney+ and Hulu, chronicles the stories of Black astronauts - and their first pioneer, Dwight. “I went straight to the recruitment office and said, ‘I want to fly.’”īut in recent years, Dwight is finally being celebrated. “I said, ‘Oh my God, they’re letting Black people fly,’” Dwight says. But while in college, he saw in a newspaper, above the fold, an image of a downed Black pilot in Korea. “It was the white man’s domain,” he says. It would be years before Dwight entertained the idea of himself becoming a pilot. “There were no streets or stop signs up there. “My first flight was the most exhilarating thing in the world,” says Dwight, smiling. But when he was 8 or 9, Dwight asked for more than a dime. “They’d say to me, ‘Hey kid, would you clean my airplane? I’ll give you a dime,’” Dwight, 90, recalls. Most were flying back from hunting trips and their cabins were messy with blood and empty beers cans on the floor. An airfield was within walking distance, and, as a boy, he’d often go to marvel at the planes and gawk at the pilots. And in 2019, I completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in narrative nonfiction writing at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.NEW YORK (AP) - Ed Dwight grew up in segregated 1930s Kansas on a farm on the edge of town. I hold undergraduate and graduate degrees in English from George Mason University. ![]() I teach for the University of Missouri Journalism School and am a 2022 Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. My writing has been recognized by "Best American Essays" and. Find them in Smithsonian magazine, Oxford American, Task & Purpose, The Bitter Southerner, The War Horse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA Lacrosse Magazine and Inside Lacrosse. ![]() Many of my stories are about trauma and resilience. My assignments have taken me to the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and the White House. An award-winning journalist, essayist and educator with nearly three decades of experience reporting for newspapers, I have written extensively about war, politics and mental health. ![]()
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