Reaching for the Moon: Chapter 7–Epilogue

Angry Whites would call the student protesters every foul name they could think of; then they would spit on, humiliate, and physically intimidate them.

Sitting in front of my black-and-white television, the girls and I felt goose bumps all over us as gospel singer Mahalia Jackson sang an old Negro spiritual, “I Been Buked and I Been Scorned,” and we heard the words of what would come to be known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

It also forbade the use of federal funds for anything that discriminated against anyone, and authorized the federal government to enforce the integration of schools and penalize schools that didn’t comply.

Young people began to call each other “Black” (and, later, “African American”) instead of “Colored” or “Negro,” and many younger folks began to grow tired of the incremental change that the older adults favored, and began pushing for more dramatic progress toward equality and “Black power.”

In fact, every Monday Jim would go to Hampton’s campus to do physical training with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadets.

A new idea had been developed for how to get to the moon, called lunar-orbit rendezvous.

Having come from very modest circumstances myself, I could definitely understand their point.

In the face of this criticism, NASA began to try to make our work more relevant to the average citizen.

In the face of this criticism, NASA began to try to make our work more relevant to the average citizen.

In medicine, a new generation of pacemaker could regulate a person’s heartbeat for decades, rather than needing to be replaced every two years.

These advances didn’t solve our nation’s inequality, but they did prove that our work was relevant and beneficial to society at large.

If he, who had advocated nonviolence rather than nationalism or separatism had been killed, what hope did the rest of us Negroes have?

If he, who had advocated nonviolence rather than nationalism or separatism had been killed, what hope did the rest of us Negroes have?

As we slowly gained some civil rights, it seemed that both hope and calamity walked hand in hand.

Yet my calculations had not only helped the Eagle land successfully, but they also helped it to sync back up with the command and service module so that our guys could come back home.

At my retirement luncheon with NASA Assistant Branch Head Ed Fondriot.

The book Hidden Figures, written by Margot Lee Shetterly about the West computers, and the subsequent movie Hidden Figures, which was inspired by my life and the other women of West Computing, ended with Alan Shepard’s trip into the atmosphere.

I also reveled in some notable NASA firsts, including the first woman astronaut, Dr. Sally Ride—a physicist—and air force pilot and aerospace engineer Guion “Guy” Bluford, the first African American astronaut to make it to space.

I also reveled in some notable NASA firsts, including the first woman astronaut, Dr. Sally Ride—a physicist—and air force pilot and aerospace engineer Guion “Guy” Bluford, the first African American astronaut to make it to space.

Receiving an honorary degree from Capitol College in Maryland.

They are thoughtful, intelligent, and really amazing young women.

However, I was the exception to the rule.

The film has unleashed a flurry of activity, which has been exciting to experience so late in my life, when so many of my contemporaries have either passed on or been forgotten about.

“You don’t have anything?” the security officer asked when we arrived at the White House and Kathy told him of our plight.

I’ve even been told that Reverend Eder, the White priest whose clothing my mother used to wash back in White Sulphur Springs, bought a sort of commemorative brick and had it installed in the wall at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, in honor of my father, Joshua Coleman.