The Black History Month event Friday (Feb. 10) included astronauts, NASA directors and a discussion of why diversity matters, with high schoolers making up much of the audience.
In eighth grade, Leland Melvin was a part-time janitor at a Virginia bank to make some extra cash for his family.'s Black astronauts, recalled once greeting a senior bank official while cleaning the bathroom, in the late 1970s."He looked through me like I wasn't even there, like I was a ghost," Melvin told a Smithsonian Institution audience Friday .
The livestreamed event from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C."the legacy of achievement, connection, and knowledge of African Americans at NASA" for February's Black History Month. Several speakers repeated this mantra:"Black history is American history."
Melvin was so devoted to science as a child he once accidentally created a minor but"incredible explosion" in his mother's living room with a chemistry set, he told the high school audience. So he had one big takeaway from that interaction at the bank to share:"I said to myself, 'I never want to have someone feel like I felt.' I said, 'I will continue to rise. I won't let a person like that influence me or keep me from rising.
The speakers at the Smithsonian acknowledged these issues while also pointing to drive, talent, community-building and other traits that unite African Americans and indeed, all of humanity."We need to know Black history because it is one important facet of our story," current NASA astronautGlover made it to NASA after a lifetime of curiosity, encouraged by his parents; he was born out of wedlock, he explained, but both his father and mother wanted him to pursue education.
"All of us should be able to celebrate these accomplishments," Glover added,"no matter what you look like, no matter how old you are, or where or when you come from. It's our story. That's why and we should take ownership of it."
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