Get Access We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans In The Space Program Assembled By Richard Paul Accessible Through Document

the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, and both political and racial riots throughout the United States,was a tumultuous year for the American nation.
It closed, however, with the glimpse of a hopeful future a glimpse of the heavens, as three astronauts circled the Moon in low orbit in December.
We Could Not Fail is a history of NASA's connection with the Civil Rights movement, revealing how its vision of the future threw light upon the dark legacy of the Jim Crow past.
The history unfolds in a series of miniature biographies, though only one actually approaches the astronaut program, Most of the people involved worked as NASA technicians or within industries that supplied it, NASA shared its history with the Civil Rights program, and not simply because the movement's most restive years coincided with the push for space, during the administrations of men who claimed in JFK's case or devoutly cared about fulfilling the promise of the American dream.
The space ideal of NASA didn't just help inspire Americans, southerners included, to push beyond old limits it also provided the means for uplifting the south.
Johnson, a Texan himself, believed that the greatest hindrance to the south growing beyond segregation was its economic despondency, Create regional prosperity in the south, he figured, and inequality and the institutions that supported it would evaporate away, Because NASA was the most highly visible arm of the Federal government during this years, it had a special responsibility to effect more equal hiring practices.
Despite the pressure of the Kennedy brothers and Johnson, NASA struggled, more for want of material than ideas, Most engineers and support staff were recruited from the south itself, and segregated communities ceded ground only grudgingly to what NASA administrator James Webb wanted to do.
One struggle, for instance, was reforming local housing politics, as discrimination kept black employees from relocating near NASA's base of operations, Similarly, while there were black

technical schools, NASA overlooked them: fortunately, men like Julius Montgomery, a black engineer, were advocating for the integration of places like Florida Tech.
We Could Not Fail documents well the struggle of LBJ and Webb to make NASA's promise a reality, through the lives of the wouldbe astronauts, activists, engineers, teachers, and other ordinary heroes who endured oppression with moral dignity, persevering until their value both as human beings and pioneers in a new age of exploration were recognized.

I thought this book was going to be about African Americans working for NASA, I don't know if the book eventually got to talking about that, but I couldn't keep reading, From the first few chapters, the book appears to be more about how the space program opened up affirmative action programs, The thesis was so undeveloped that I'm not really sure, Each chapter centered around an individual, and while I was very interested in the individual's stories, that didn't seem to be the focus,

Also, the author seems to be under the mistaken belief that the moon is a planet, He wrote more than once things like "Houston would become the first word ever spoken by a human being on another planet, " Humans have never been on another planet, Phenomenal thesis: LBJ pushed NASA as a tech jobs program in the South, whose economic consequences, and forced EEOC compliance, would promote racial equality.
The social motivation for NASA's Southern presence Houston, Huntsville, Cape Canaveral, Hancock never occurred to me before,

I'm so torn on the concept of NASA as promoter of racial equality, Its affirmative action seems to assume that there arequalified black engineers whowant to work in Alabama amp Mississippi andwill be welcome there.
This fantasy belittles the depth of racial injustice in the's South, Similar fantasies belittle the depth of racial injustice today, On the other hand, where else do you start review to come Worth the Time

Not an easy read, but definitely worth the time you will invest.
Much more tedious than The Warmth of Other Suns, it is very much burdened with a lot of stats, and other types of measurements on the effectiveness of NASA.
I never got a clear read on some of the administratorssometimes they were ineffective and shallow, other times brave, Perhaps that is real life, At times characters like Wernher can Braun felt stereotyped, Van Braun is scarcely mentioned without reference to his Nazi and SS past,

That being said, it is another level of understanding of the Sixties and race relations in the South following the lives and careers of selected men.
The story is amazing, and for that reason this book needs to be read and understood and put into context with Dr, King, Hidden Figures, The Warmth of Other Suns, and several others for a clearer picture of these turbulent times, Recommended reading. Echos of Hidden Figures with a bit broader scope, I often finished each chapter wishing for a little more depth and information a lot of the material focuses on broad strokes of history surrounding the time, which I had already read elsewhere.
Still enjoyable! The book seemed scholarly without being too drug down in theory, I think this is an important tale to tell, and this work seems to do a more than admirable job of doing it, The net on this is, NASA helped but not as much as we might have liked, and only where they could hold real power.
After writing a master's thesis on the intersection between NASA and thes civil rights movement, Steven Moss teamed with Richard Paul to produce this book.
These authors present the idea that the U, S. federal government was deeply committed to two goals during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations: spaceflight and reshaping the racial landscape of the southern part of the nation.
Thus NASA facilities emerged in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, with Kennedy and Johnson each hoping that AfricanAmericans could obtain rewarding jobs at these locations thanks to the emphasis on equal employment opportunity championed by the government.


Moss and Paul were able to interview and recount the stories of some of the AfricanAmericans who moved "literally from the cotton fields to the launch pad," in the case of Morgan Watson.
These people did not typically protest for racial equality, but made their presence felt in another way: through their hard work and competence in working on spaceflight, they altered the attitudes of their white colleagues about what AfricanAmericans could accomplish.
The authors are quick to point out that the percentage of AfricanAmericans working at NASA remained disappointingly low throughout thes, staying at aboutpercent.
NASA also achieved only a mixed level of success in altering racial attitudes at the southern cities where their facilities were located, Yet Moss and Paul still believe in the value of letting readers know about those who opened the door to AfricanAmerican employment at NASA.
They have done well to tell the stories of people who even many space historians probably are not familiar with, as well as explain the motivations of the federal government in encouraging their employment.
All of the people profiled in this book are men, so the reader should be aware that it does leave out the experiences of women such as those Margot Lee Shetterly wrote about in Hidden Figures.
The writing is also more dry and academic than some readers would prefer, But this is definitely a worthy addition to literature on spaceflight, Very thorough and interesting overview of the big picture of NASA's effect on the civil rights movement and vice versa, Enlivened through the device of tying one or more pioneering African American space workers to each chapter and telling some about their work, their ways of coping with racism, and their lives in general.


Minor complaints: The voice was a bit dry, Also, I would've rather learned more about the people who were doing the scientific/technical work, as well as their immediate experiences, and less about the white male administrators and their political infights with each other over the best way to fail to do nearly as much good as they could have.
Not to mention their opponents, Honestly, from a purely selfish point of view I could do without learning anything more about George Wallace ever, that man just managed to ruin lives and make things more miserable everywhere he went, what a terrible person he was and how much space he takes up as a thoroughly irredeemable villain in every civil rights history that gets anywhere near Alabama.


BUTTTTTT both of those groups are an important part of history and I thought the big picture story and the individual men's lives were interwoven reasonably well.
This is a definitely a different lens on the history of the US space program than anything else I've read!,