Watched the documentary film Apollo 11 last night. Seeing it 54 years after the original offered a certain perspective, not to mention color and clarity.
Couldn't help noticing the almost 100 percent white male control room and the almost 100 percent white audience at Cape Canaveral viewing in person. The film didn't make a point of either, though I'm sure it wasn't by chance the camera passed over one woman in the control room and a couple blacks watching. The film was shot in 1969 with the sensibilities of the time, so I'm guessing it didn't miss much. I'm sure there was a sizeable TV audience of blacks, but few would have had the time and money to travel to the Cape. I can only guess the feelings of the black watchers; possibly discomfort at being one in a thousand, possibly participating in the sort of nationalistic pride most may have felt, or possibly just enjoying the spectacle.
Apollo 11 was a peculiarly white endeavor; IIRC many black leaders questioned spending the money on space rather than domestic needs. The black participants in the effort were hidden. See Hidden Figures. So it seemed an white American success, perhaps with a little credit to the German scientists who immigrated to Alabama after WWII.
In 1969 LBJ had been driven from office, so Tricky Dick got to call the astronauts after their recovery. We'd seen the assassinations of MLK and RFK, and the country was sharply divided. The immigration laws had been reformed in 1965 but it was too early to see their effect. We were still on the gold standard and inflation was starting to be a concern.
I don't know how modern historians place the moonshot in the flow of American life. I suspect many have considered it a sideshow, an assessment which may be changing as we try to get back to the moon and then to Mars.
No comments:
Post a Comment