Soaring on the Wings of a Dream

The nation's Jim Crow laws were still in effect when Edward Dwight Jr was selected as the America's First Black Astronaut Candidate by President Kennedy. This memoir chronicles his early life in an impoverished family scratching out an existence in Depression-era Kansas, to his reach for the stars as a contender for NASA's fledgling space program.

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The nation's Jim Crow laws were still in effect when Edward Dwight Jr. was selected as the America's First Black Astronaut Candidate by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Caught in the turbulence of opposing ideas, Dwight's entire career as an Air Force pilot was buffeted by those who had the power to support or destroy him. This riveting memoir chronicles Dwight's early life in an impoverished family scratching out an existence in Depression-era Kansas City, Kansas, to his reach for the stars as a contender for NASA's fledgling space program. Although he alternated between being a single father and the husband of a mentally unstable woman who breezed in and out of his life. President Kennedy's public relations machine insisted the Dwights portray the perfect African American family to the media. In the end, Kennedy's assassination changed his destiny and he had to find another dream to chase.