New monument in Texas honors Black pioneers who helped shape America’s space program
TheGrio...
The EarthRise monument near NASA’s Johnson Space Center recognizes figures including Katherine Johnson, Guion Bluford and Ed Dwight.
A new public monument near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Nassau Bay, Texas, is bringing greater visibility to Black pioneers. Their contributions helped make America’s space achievements possible, according to the Defender Network.
Called EarthRise, the $125,000 monument at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church honors figures including former NASA administrator Charles Bolden Jr., astronaut Guion Bluford and mathematician Katherine Johnson. Additionally, it honors physicist George Carruthers, astronaut Bernard Harris, aviation pioneer Ed Dwight and Robert Lawrence Jr., the first Black astronaut selected for the Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory program.
The monument features eight panels surrounding a sculpture inspired by capsules used during the Gemini era. Above it, a stained-glass canopy draws inspiration from the Pillars of Creation, a formation of gas and cosmic dust in the Eagle Nebula.
The EarthRise monument deliberately expands the traditional narrative of the American space program beyond the astronauts. Ed Dwight, for example, became the first Black pilot selected for the Air Force’s Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1961, putting him on a path toward becoming an astronaut. Despite his qualifications, NASA never selected him.
More than six decades later, at age 90, Dwight finally traveled to space aboard a Blue Origin commercial flight in 2024. Robert Lawrence Jr. came even closer. Selected by the Air Force for its astronaut program in 1967, he became the nation’s first Black astronaut, but died months later in a jet training accident.
Guion Bluford became the first African American to travel into space in 1983. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space that same year. The monument also recognizes people who never traveled beyond Earth.
Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations were critical to early NASA missions, including John Glenn’s orbital flight in 1962. George Carruthers developed an ultraviolet camera and spectrograph that traveled to the moon aboard Apollo 16.