The premiere of a new NASA documentary featuring the achievements of many black astronauts will be on Sunday (June 19th) during The Eleventh.
The 50-minute documentary will be available for viewing from 12 noon EDT (1700 GMT). You can catch it in the video above or on NASA TV, the NASA app, NASA’s social media channels and the agency website (opens in a new section).
A free face-to-face screening will also be held at Howard University in Washington on Saturday at 7pm local time; details of registration and activities can be found at this website (opens in a new section).
“The anchoring of the documentary is a powerful and thought-provoking conversation between seven current and former black astronauts, each of whom has been selected to join NASA’s astronaut corps and train for space missions,” agency officials wrote on Thursday. June) message (opens in a new section) about the documentary.
Connected: Charles Bolden, NASA’s first black administrator, spoke of systemic racism
The Eleventh is a federal holiday celebrating the practical end of slavery in the United States. It marks the anniversary of June 19, 1865, marking the emancipation of 250,000 enslaved people in Texas who were released after the Union Army seized a previously Confederate state, according to Smithsonian Institution. (opens in a new section)
This event occurred two years after the Thirteenth Amendment of 1863 abolished most forms of slavery in the United States; The Confederate states ignored the amendment throughout the Civil War, which continued during this era.
However, the positive moment of Juneteenth was followed by many difficult decades in the Black Community. Some of the many examples include institutions closing access to forms of wealth such as home ownership and bank accounts, the Jim Crow era of so-called “separate but equal” facilities, leading to long-term underfunding in black communities, violence and threats against blacks. and other forms of systemic racism that continue to this day.
The documentary features a number of black figures at NASA who commemorate the achievements of blacks in space exploration. The premiere is also a historic moment for the Black Community, while Jessica Watkins conducts first long-term stay by a black female astronaut on the International Space Station.
The interview with seven astronauts featured in the documentary includes current NASA astronauts Stephanie Wilson, Victor Glover and Janet Epps, as well as retired astronauts Bernard Harris, Robert Kerbim, Bobby Sutcher and Leland Melvin.
Melvin has spoken before about the racism he faced as a young footballer and how, if things went differently, he could ended up in jail instead of NASA.
The astronauts “talked about their travels and their motivation” during an event on March 25 at the Houston Space Center, NASA said. The panel was moderated by NASA Space Center Director Johnson Vanessa Witch, the first black woman to head a NASA center.
Other black astronauts have also been featured, the agency said. “The documentary also includes rare archival footage and interviews with Guion Guy Blueford, the first black man in space; Charlie Bolden, retired astronaut and first NASA Black Administrator; former astronauts Alvin Drew and Joan Higginbotham; and Ed Dwight, America’s first African-American astronaut candidate, NASA said.
(Blueford was the first black American astronaut in space, but he didn’t fly until 1983, although the space program began flying humans in 1961.)
In an interview with Space.com in 2020, Bolden discussed systemic racism he has faced it throughout his career and, among many other measures, has called for more representation in the astronauts’ office by both “women and minorities”.
The contribution of black Americans to the space program dates back decades. IN “Hidden figures”who were black engineers and mathematicians at NASA in the 1950s and 1960s, made a decisive contribution to the agency’s early years.
The last stages of Blacks in space include a NASA astronaut Victor Glover becomes the first black astronaut to complete a long-term mission in 2020-21 and Inspiration4 astronaut Sian Proctor becomes the first black woman to fly a space mission in 2021.
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