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This is a snapshot of Col. Bluford (the second black, but first African-American,
to fly in space) taken by my mother on March
14, 1984. He was the guest of honor at a Joint Armed Forces Officers'
Wives Luncheon held in Washington, DC. Mom's handwritten note
on the back says, "Col. Bluford stopped eating his salad
to smile for me"
In 1966, while a senior in high school, my father asked me if I wanted to go to West Point or Annapolis. Once I got over the shock of realizing just how much influence my father had, I weighed the decision very carefully. It was the height of the Viet Nam conflict (he had just returned from six months in the Saigon Embassy on assignment from the State Department) and the life expectancy of a 2nd Lieutenant in combat was about six months. On the other hand, I really wanted to become an astronaut, and only Service Acadamy graduates had a shot at it in those days.
Given the racial climate of America, I knew that the first black astronaut would have to be what we called Super Nigger, and having been born with superior intelligence ("Being in Mensa means never having to tell anyone your real I.Q."), I knew that all I had to do was "live up to the limits of my potential." Easier said than done!
Needless to say, I declined my father's offer, because I lacked the confidence in both America and my own ambition. Now that I look back on it, even if I had not qualified for the space program, I could have been one of Gen. Colin Powell's advisors.
As it turns out, I was partly correct -- Col. Bluford was Super Nigger, with a Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering and the vetran of over 100 combat missions flying an F4 Phantom in Viet Nam. (Sally Ride didn't fly no hundred combat missions, and she got to fly in the shuttle before he did.) And he didn't get to pilot the shuttle, either -- his crew assignment was Payload Specialst, i.e., he was the baggage handler. :-(
Things you didn't learn in school: Contray to popular belief, Col. Bluford was not the first black man in space -- that honor goes to Col. Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez of the Cuban Air Force, who was a crew member on the Soviet Salyut 6/Soyuz 38 mission three years before Col. Bluford's first Challenger flight.