Ronald McNair, who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986, overcame the racism of the Jim Crow South to become the first HBCU graduate to be an astronaut and the second African American person in space.
Astronaut Jeanette Epps will make history as the first African-American astronaut to fly on board the International Space Station as a flight engineer during an expedition in May 2018.
The final launch of Atlantis on July 8 will mark the end of the American space era, where six of these unique spacecrafts flew 135 missions. Of those missions, 20 African-Americans earned the title “Astronaut,” and 13 actually went to space. The Root honors these distinct men and women in a biographical gallery. See The […]
