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'Black in Space' looks at final frontier of civil rights

4 years 1 month 1 week ago Wednesday, February 19 2020 Feb 19, 2020 February 19, 2020 10:23 PM February 19, 2020 in News - AP Texas Headlines

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A new documentary looks at the final frontier of civil rights: getting black astronauts into space amid segregation, discrimination and the Cold War. “Black in Space: Breaking the Color Barrier” is scheduled to air Monday on the Smithsonian Channel. It examines the race to get black astronauts onto rockets. The effort began under President John F. Kennedy. But the U.S. wouldn't send a black astronaut into space until 1983. The film shows how former Soviet Union beat the U.S. and sent into space Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez. He was the first Latin American and first person of African descent to reach space.

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