NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement

As NASA prepared for the launch of Apollo 11 in July 1969, many African American leaders protested the billions of dollars used to fund space joyrides rather than help tackle poverty, inequality, and discrimination at home. This volume examines such tensions as well as the ways in which NASAs goal of space exploration aligned with the cause of racial equality. It provides new insights into the complex relationship between the space program and the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow South and abroad. Essays explore how thousands of jobs created during the space race offered new opportunities for minorities in places like Huntsville, Alabama, while at the same time segregation at NASAs satellite tracking station in South Africa led to that facilitys closure. Other topics include black skepticism toward NASAs framing of space exploration as for the benefit of all mankind, NASAs track record in hiring women and minorities, and the efforts of black activists to increase minority access to education that would lead to greater participation in the space program. The volume also addresses how to best find and preserve archival evidence of African American contributions that are missing from narratives of space exploration. NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement offers important lessons from history as todays activists grapple with the distance between social movements like Black Lives Matter and scientific ambitions such as NASAs mission to Mars.