![]() ![]() The Kennedy administration, which campaigned strongly on civil rights issues, had already taken an active interest in Dwight’s career, seeing his potential as an important symbolic achievement for both the White House and the nation. The national attention led to increased public pressure for Dwight to be selected as a NASA astronaut. As the eyes of America were on the space race, the eyes of Black America were specifically on Dwight. It’s absolutely stunning.”ĭwight’s participation in the astronaut selection process caught the attention of many, including Whitney Young, executive director of the National Urban League, who booked speaking tours and interviews for Dwight with black publications across the country, such as Ebony and Jet. ![]() “You can actually see this beautiful blue layer that the Earth is encased in. “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. 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. 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. He trained in the Aerospace Research Pilot School, run by aviation icon Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. Air Force’s premier experimental flight base and a pathway to entering the astronaut corps of NASA. Dwight would never get the opportunity to go to space-despite the publicity and hype-for reasons that remain unclear even to this day.ĭwight was working at the time as a test pilot at Edwards in the Mojave Desert of California, the U.S. “Most of my mail was just addressed to Astronaut Dwight, Kansas City, Kansas.” Fans from around the world were writing to congratulate Dwight on becoming the first African American astronaut candidate. Some of it came to my mother in Kansas City,” Dwight, now 86, recalls. “I received about 1,500 pieces of mail a week, which were stored in large containers at Edwards Air Force Base. Air Force pilot Ed Dwight was drowning in mail.
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