Ed Dwight, who was to be the first Black astronaut, is finally getting his due
Decades after Ed Dwight was looked over to become NASA's first Black man in space his career is getting attention through "The Space Race," a new documentary on National Geographic Channels, Disney + and Hulu.
Ed Dwight grew up in segregated 1930s Kansas on a farm on the edge of town. An airfield was within walking distance, and, as a boy, he’d often go to marvel at the planes and gawk at the pilots. Most were flying back from hunting trips and their cabins were messy with blood and empty beers cans on the floor.
“They’d say to me, ‘Hey kid, would you clean my airplane? I’ll give you a dime,’” Dwight, 90, recalls. But when he was 8 or 9, Dwight asked for more than a dime. He wanted to fly.
“My first flight was the most exhilarating thing in the world,” says Dwight, smiling. “There were no streets or stop signs up there. You were free as a bird.”
It would be years before Dwight entertained the idea of himself becoming a pilot. “It was the white man’s domain,” he says. But while in college, he saw in a newspaper, above the fold, an image of a downed Black pilot in Korea.
“I said, ‘Oh my God, they’re letting Black people fly,’” Dwight says. “I went straight to the recruitment office and said, ‘I want to fly.’”
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