As NASA prepared for the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969, many African American leaders protested the billions of dollars used to fund 'space joyrides' rather than help tackle poverty, inequality, and discrimination. This volume examines such tensions as well as the ways in which NASA's goal of space exploration aligned with racial equality.

Examining the ways in which NASA's goal of space exploration both conflicted and aligned with the cause of racial equality, this volume provides new insights into the complex relationship between the space program and the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow South and abroad.