Ed Dwight is an artist and former U.S. Air Force test pilot who was America’s first African American astronaut candidate. | By Conway Jones Ed Dwight is an artist and former U.S. Air Force test pilot who was America’s first African American astronaut candidate. Born in 1933, he grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, showing artistic talent and mechanical gifts early in childhood. While in college in the 1950s, Dwight saw an article in a newspaper