KCK man was almost the 1st Black person in space. New movie shows the ‘hell’ he endured

Edward Dwight Jr. left his home in Kansas City, Kansas, in the early 1960s to become one of the nation’s first Black astronauts.

Racism and politics soon crashed that ambition.

“It was hell and it really turned me upside down,” says Dwight, now 90, who had already faced the scourge of racism while growing up in KCK. “They tried to make me fail out and make it seem like I was ignorant and didn’t have the intelligence to be an astronaut.”

With a change in presidential administrations came a change of plans, and the program to put Black men in space was scuttled. Dwight, who had been a pilot and aeronautical engineer, went on to become an acclaimed painter and sculptor . And the nation would not have its first Black astronaut until 1983.

The stories of Dwight and other Black pilots, scientists and engineers in the space program are in the spotlight with a new National Geographic documentary, “ The Space Race .” It premieres on Disney+ on Feb. 12. But Kansas Citians got an early glimpse of it last month at the Zhou Brothers Art Center, 1801 E. 18th St. It will be screened again at 7 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Gem Theater .

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