Ed Dwight

Ed Dwight is an American sculptor and former test pilot born in Kansas City in 1933. In 1961, at President Kennedy's direction, he became the first African American to enter the Air Force's Aerospace Research Pilot School, a pipeline to NASA's astronaut corps. Though he completed the training and advanced to the second round, he was not ultimately selected for the Astronaut Corps. After leaving the Air Force in 1966, Dwight pursued sculpture, earning an M.F.A. from the University of Denver in 1977.