it looks at nasa s role in civil rights in the years before the civil rights act pass. before the civil rights act passed discrimination was not against of law. it was legal to say no, you cannot use this toilet, you are black or you cannot come into this restaurant, you are black and that is an important distinction that will become even more important as we talk about the achievements of some of the people in this book. we will be talking about the rules put in place by the tonedy administration address discrimination and how they were implemented by nasa and its contractors. we will be talking about the people whose lives were touched those rules. our books tell the story of men most of them who came to work at the program during the civil some were nasa employees and some of them worked for contractors. president kennedy was forced into dealing with outerspace at the same time and forced into dealing with civil rights. these are not things he talked about during the campa
the most formidable people i have seen in my life have that balance. the ioc sports as the be all were involved in another part of their life the tunes you cannot out compete them. there is a way but when you build $16 million stadiums it is hard and not fair and to expect the kids to concentrate. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] .. we re kicking off a full day today with the new book, and president reagan talking about president interjects and present bush and the science behind but the whole the of civil-rights and the relationship between the u.s. and israel in the american space program. that is all, being applied today from boston for you can get the full schedule on line and follow us on twitter and facebook as well to give scheduled updates. here is h.w. brand from the 20th annual texas book festival live coverage on booktv from austin, texas. good morning, good morning, and thank you so much for joining us at the 20
in space. now here is a panel discussion on the american space program. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon everybody. are you all ready to blast off? had to do at least one before we started. welcome, everybody to the texas book festival and to all of you joining us on c-span book tv listening throughout the universe or even the known or unknown it s good to have you here. it is my pleasure today to itod is my pleasure to introduce two authors and two books that i thoroughly enjoyed reading. i couldn t put either one of them down x. the other perhaps unique aspects is they were extremely well written.ch i m sure you ll very much enjoy reading them. the first book is called leavingll orbit. it is by margaret lazarus dean, to my left, who is a professor of english at the university of tennessee knoxville. and then also steven moss has written this really [laughter] steven moss has written this very, very interesting book aso well called we could not fail. steven i
we re here to talk about our book, we could not fail: the first african-americans in the space program. it looks at nasa s role in civil rights in the years before the civil rights act passed, and that s an important distinction. because before the civil rights act passed, discrimination was not against the law. it was legal to say, no, you can t use this toilet, you re black. or, no, you can t come into this restaurant, you re black, which is an important distinction that will become even more so as we talk about the achievements of some of the people in this book. we ll be talking about the rules put in place by the kennedy administration to try and address workplace discrimination and how they were implemented by nasa and by its contractors. but more importantly, we ll be talking about the people whose lives were touched by those rules. our book tells the stories of ten men, most of whom came to work in the space program during the years that we call the civil rights era
and steven moss talk about 10 african-americans who broke the color barrier at nasa and use of the space program by president s kennedy and johnson to advance social change. thank you, i m richard paul. steven will be up when it is time for his presentation. we re here to talk about our book, we could not fail. look as that today seas role in the years before the civil rights act passed. that is important distinction. before the civil rights act passed discrimination was not against the law. it was legal. no, you can t use this toilet, you re black. or no, you can t come into this restaurant you re black. which is important distinction that will become even more so as we talk about the achievements of some of the people in this book. we ll be talking about the rules put in place bit kennedy administration to try to address workplace discrimination and how they were implemented by nasa and by its contractors but more importantly we ll be talking about the people whose