When Ronald
McNair was nine-years-old, he almost got arrested for trying to check out books
from the library. He had walked a mile to get there, and there was no stopping
him.
Except for
the two policemen. This was 1959 in rural Lake City, South Carolina. The
Rev. Jesse Jackson said Lake City was so remote, it was
"several miles deeper than the country." The library was segregated,
and when young Ron innocently walked in, white people actually chuckled.
An elderly
librarian told him, "This library is not for coloreds." She warned
him that if didn't leave right away, she would call the police.
“Lordy, Jesus”
"I'll
wait," McNair replied, and he proceeded to sit on the librarian's
check-out counter.
A second
phone call was made—to Ron's mother. "Lordy, Jesus," she thought.
"Please don't let them put my child in jail."
When she
and two huge white officers arrived, the policemen quickly appraised the
severity of this law-breaking attempt. One of them said to the librarian,
"Why don't you just give the kid the books?"
After all,
McNair could read when he was three. In second grade, he carried a slide rule,
the device mathematicians used to make calculations before calculators were
invented. In short, he was a nerd. Friends called him "Gismo."
He wasn't a
total bookworm. His father Carl Sr. taught him the meaning of hard, hard work.
"During the summer my sons worked sunup to sundown picking cotton and
beans—all for just $4 a day." Meanwhile, he learned the value of education
from his mother. Getting ahead was so vital to her that when her children were
in grade school she commuted 600 miles every week to earn her master's degree
in education.
Mother Toughened Him Up
His goal
topped his mother's. He wanted to major in physics or engineering college. When
predominately white universities in South Carolina wouldn't admit him, he went
on a full-scholarship to the mostly black North Carolina AT&T. Then came a
PhD in Physics from MIT.
If his
mother toughened him up for school, his father's lessons paid off, too McNair
also had the intense self-discipline to study karate through college,
ultimately becoming a fifth-degree black belt.
One day a
letter came from NASA inviting him to apply to be an astronaut. Out of 8,000
candidates, he was one of 35 selected. After training for six years, he first
flew into space in 1984 aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger becoming the second African-American to go into orbit.
"He
was absolutely phenomenal," said fellow astronaut Charles Bolden. "I know
he slept, but I'm not sure when."
Saxophone Serenade
During his
191 hours in space on that mission, McNair played the lead role in acoustic
levitation and chemical separation experiments. And he conducted 'experiments'
of a musical nature. (McNair loved music so much that had considered making
that his major in college). Thus he serenaded his fellow space travelers with
his saxophone, making that a first in space.
"God
chose a laser physicist to defy the odds of oppression," said Rev. Jackson,
preaching a memorial service to McNair. His second flight into space was aboard
STS-51, the 1986 Challenger mission that ended in a massive explosion 73
seconds after lift-off, destroying the Shuttle and killing all seven of its
astronauts.
“The true courage of space flight is not strapping into one’s
seat prior to liftoff. It is not sitting aboard six million pounds of fire and
thunder as one rockets away from the planet," said McNair. "The true
courage comes in enduring and persevering, the preparation, and believing in
oneself.”
MORAL: Dare great things.
Buy the book "Courage 101: True Tales of Grit & Glory" at Amazon!
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