Page 6 The Skanner BLACK HISTORY EDITION February 21, 2018
Black History
Davis cont’d from pg 5
First Black Crew
Member to Join
International Space
Station
he National Aeronautics
and Space Administration
(NASA) has selected astro-
naut Jeanette Epps to join the
crew of the International Space
Station in 2018. Epps will become
the first Black crewmember to rep-
resent the U.S. on the station.
The journey will mark the first
time Epps has traveled to orbit,
allowing her to follow in the foot-
steps of the women who, she said,
inspired her to become an astro-
naut.
While other Black astronauts
have flown to the Space Station for
brief stays during the outpost’s
construction, Epps will be the first
Black crewmember to live and
work on the station for an extend-
ed period of time. Her journey
aboard the Soyuz spacecraft and
stay at the station places her as the
only American and female among
a crew made up of mostly Russians
and men.
“I’m a person just like they are. I
do the same work as they do,” Epps
told a group of STEM students at
her Syracuse alma mater, Dan-
forth Middle School. “If something
breaks, anyone of us will have to
be able to go out the door. We have
to be jacks of all trades. It’s not a
job that’s like any other.”
While working on her doctor-
ate, Epps was a NASA graduate
student Researchers Project fel-
low, authoring several journal
and conference articles about her
research. After completing her
graduate studies, Epps worked in
T
a research lab
for more than
two
years,
c o - a u th o r i n g
multiple
pat-
ents, before be-
ing recruited
by the Central
Intelligence
Agency (CIA).
She was a CIA
technical intel-
ligence officer
for about seven
years before be-
ing selected as a NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps will be the first Black crewmember
member of the to live and work on the International Space Station for an extended
2009 astronaut period of time.
class.
“Anything you don’t know is go- of women were selected to become
ing to be hard at first,” Epps said astronauts — the first time in his-
in a video statement about the tory. So, he made that comment
launch. “But if you stay the course, and I said, ‘Wow, that would be so
put the time and effort in, it will cool.’”
Epps will join veteran NASA
astronaut Andrew Feustel at the
Space Station. On Feustel’s first
long-duration mission, he served
as a flight engineer on Expedition
55, and later as commander of Ex-
pedition 56.
become seamless eventually.”
“Each space station crew brings
Epps, in the NASA video inter- something different to the table,
view, shared when she was first in- and Drew and Jeanette both have
troduced to the idea that she could a lot to offer,” said Chris Cassi-
be an astronaut. “It was about 1980, dy, chief of the Astronaut Office
I was nine years old. My brother at NASA’s Johnson Space Center
came home and he looked at my in Houston, in a statement. “The
grades and my twin sisters’ grades space station will benefit from
and he said, ‘You know, you guys having them on board.”
can probably become aerospace
The AFRO is a member publica-
engineers or even astronauts,’” tion of the National Newspaper
Epps said. “And this was at the time Publishers Association. Learn more
that Sally Ride [the first American about becoming a member at www.
woman to fly in space] and a group nnpa.org.
PHOTO: NASA
By Shantella Y. Sherman (AFRO/
NNPA Member)
“
I’m a person just
like they are. I do
the same work as
they do
as good to get half as
much as his fellow
White male scholars
(and the situation was
far worse for black
women scholars like
Elizabeth Stubbs Da-
vis). Only through
compiling a truly
remarkable
record
of achievement, and
only amid the nation-
al fervor to make the
U.S. the “arsenal of
democracy”
during
World War II, would
Chicago even consid-
er appointing Allison
Davis. Even then, he
only received a three-
year contract on the
condition that the Ju-
lius Rosenwald Foun-
dation (JRF) agree to
subsidize most of his
salary.
Even with the sub-
sidy, certain univer-
sity faculty members,
such as Georgia-born
sociologist William
Fielding Ogburn, ac-
tively opposed the
appointment on rac-
ist grounds. So, too,
did some trustees
at the JRF, including
the wealthy New Or-
leans philanthropist
Edgar B. Stern, who
attempted to sabotage
the grant. Discount-
ing Davis’ accomplish-
ments and implying
instead a sort of re-
verse racism, Stern
asserted that “the pur-
pose of this move is
to have Davis join the
Chicago Faculty, not in
spite of the fact that he
is a Negro but because
he is a Negro.” Simi-
larly myopic charges
have been a staple of
criticism against affir-
mative actions programs
in more recent times.
The Quadrangle Club
was where (white) facul-
ty gathered at University
of Chicago, midcentury.
University of Chicago
Photographic Archive,
apf2-06088, Special Col-
lections Research Center,
University of Chicago Li-
brary.
The opposition ulti-
mately failed to torpedo
Davis’ appointment, but
it did underscore the
type of environment he
would face at Chicago. As
faculty members openly
debated if he should even
be allowed to instruct
the university’s mainly
white students, the ad-
ministration barred him
from the Quadrangle
Club, where faculty reg-
ularly gathered and ate
lunch. In a private letter
to him, the university
made clear that it “can-
not assume responsibil-
ity for Mr. Davis’ per-
sonal happiness and his
social treatment.”
As time wore on, such
overt racism did begin
to ebb, or at least confine
itself to more private
quarters. What never
did subside, though, was
an equally pernicious
institutional racism that
marginalized Davis’ ac-
complishments and ren-
dered him professionally
invisible.
As Davis collaborated
with renowned white
scholars at Chicago, his
contributions were sub-
merged under theirs
— even when he was the
first author and chief
theorist of the work.
When Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, writing for
Commentary magazine
in 1968, failed to count
Davis among his list of
Black scholars who stud-
ied black poverty (even
though Davis was among
the most prolific Black
scholars in that area), he
registered the depth of
Davis’ marginalization.
Such marginalization,
which stemmed also
from Davis’ interdisci-
plinary approach and
iconoclasm, has caused
even historians to lose
track of him and his im-
portant career.
Davis was ensnared by
the racism he studied
Even the most excep-
tional African Ameri-
cans have never been
able to transcend the ra-
cial system that ensnares
them. Davis’ appoint-
ment did not usher in a
new era of integration
of faculties at predom-
inantly white universi-
ties. It took another three
decades for substantial
numbers of Black schol-
ars to begin receiving
offers of full-time, ten-
ure-track employment.
And because of the vast-
ly disproportionate rates
of poverty, incarceration
and municipal neglect
plaguing the black com-
munity, jobs in higher
education often contin-
ued — and still continue
— to be out of reach.
Few people better
understood, or more
thoughtfully analyzed,
these very realities than
did Allison Davis. This
was a man who laid bare
the systems of race and
class that govern Amer-
ican life. He understood
that education needed
to be a bulwark for de-
mocracy, not merely a
ladder for individual
social mobility. He em-
bodied how to confront
injustice with sustained,
productive resistance.
Moreover, this was a man
who refused to surren-
der to despair, and who
chose to dedicate his life
to making the country a
better, more equal, more
democratic place.
David Varel is a visiting
assistant professor of his-
tory at the University of
Mississippi.