Research Catalog

Title

NASA and the long civil rights movement / edited by Brian C. Odom and Stephen P. Waring.

Publication

Gainesville, FL : University Press of Florida, 2019.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Odom, Brian C.
• Waring, Stephen P.

Description

xiv, 252 pages; 24 cm

Summary

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 NASA's goal of space exploration aligned with the cause of racial equality. Essays provide new insights into the complex relationship between the space program and the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow South and abroad. NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement offers important lessons from history as today's activists grapple with the distance between social movements like Black Lives Matter and scientific ambitions such as NASA's mission to Mars.

Subject

• United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration > Appropriations and expenditures
• United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Civil rights movements > United States
• African American astronauts
• Black lives matter movement
• Poverty > United States
• Civil rights movements
• Expenditures, Public
• Poverty
• United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Foreword: "How we tell about the civil rights movement and why it matters" / Jacquelyn Dowd Hall -- Introduction: Exploring NASA in the "long" civil rights movement / Brian C. Odom -- New frameworks -- Space history matures -- and reaches a crossroads / Margaret A. Weitekamp -- Bringing mankind to the moon: the human rights narrative in the space age / P.J. Blount and David Miguel Molina -- Bringing the moon to mankind: the civil rights narrative and the space age / David Miguel Molina and P.J. Blount -- Southern context -- The newest South: race and space on the Dixie frontier / Brenda Plummer -- "Accommodating the forces of change": civil rights and economic development in space age Huntsville, Alabama / Matthew L. Downs -- NASA, the Association of Huntsville Area Contractors, and equal employment opportunity in the "Rocket City," 1963-1965 / Brian C. Odom -- International context -- Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez and Guion Bluford: the last cold war race battle / Cathleen Lewis -- The Congressional Black Caucus and the closure of NASA's satellite tracking station at Hartebeesthoek, South Africa / Keith Snedegar -- Broader context -- "A competence which should be used": NASA, social movements, and social problems in the 1970s / Cyrus C. M. Mody -- The gates of opportunity: NASA, black activism, and educational access / Eric Fenrich -- "Petite engineer likes math, music" / Christina K. Roberts -- Conclusion: " Where do we go from here?" Ensuring the past and future history of space / Jonathan Coopersmith.

Call Number

Sc E 20-454

ISBN

• 9780813066202
• 0813066204

LCCN

2019013057

OCLC

1096214931

Title

NASA and the long civil rights movement / edited by Brian C. Odom and Stephen P. Waring.

Publisher

Gainesville, FL : University Press of Florida, 2019.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Odom, Brian C., editor.

Waring, Stephen P., editor.

Research Call Number

Sc E 20-454