By: Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
On July 20th, I joined the nation in marking the 40th anniversary of mankind's first "small step" on the moon. That same week, we mourned the death of Walter Cronkite whose famous coverage of that event from his anchor desk at CBS News is etched in the minds of a generation. But with all the attention focused on Cronkite and the historic Apollo 11 mission, you may have missed another historic first that week which represented a small step and a giant leap in America's on-going journey to equal opportunity. On July 17th, former shuttle astronaut and retired Marine Corps Major General Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. became the first African American to earn a permanent appointment as Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
To recognize the significance of Bolden's confirmation, one only has to recall that when he was growing up in the Jim Crow south of the 1950s, it was more the exception than the rule to meet an African American who had flown on an airplane. Despite the heroic exploits of the all-black Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, it was not until 1965 that, according to the Organization of Black Airline Pilots, Marlon Green became the first African American hired by a major U.S. airline. Green passed away on July 6th.
Bolden's dreams of space exploration began with his feet planted firmly on the ground as a child of public school teacher parents in Columbia, South Carolina. After graduating from C.A. Johnson High School in 1964, he overcame racial barriers to earn an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. Upon graduation from the Naval Academy in 1968, he began a 34-year career with the Marine Corps, including flying more than 100 combat missions during the Vietnam War. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1980.
As a NASA astronaut, Bolden flew four times on the Space Shuttle, commanding two of the missions. His flights included deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first joint U.S.-Russian shuttle mission. After his final space shuttle flight in 1994, he returned to active duty in the Marines. In May, President Obama nominated him to become NASA's 12th Administrator.
At his confirmation hearing on July 8th, Bolden emphasized both the technological and humanitarian imperatives that will guide his leadership of NASA. After calling for the nation to fill the gap between the growing need for scientists and engineers and its production of them, he said, "I now dream of a day when any American can launch into the vastness of outer space and see the magnificence and grandeur of our home planet, Earth, as I have been blessed to do. I'm convinced this will inspire them to be more concerned for our environment and to strive to put an end to man's inhumanity to man." It took this nation just 153 years to figure out how to travel 238,857 miles to set foot on the moon. Our much longer journey to equal opportunity for all Americans took a giant leap forward when Charles F. Bolden became the first African American Administrator of NASA.
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