“Time” and “Newsweek” Noticed the scarce amount of Blacks at Apollo 11 Moon Launch in articles published in 1969; No one dares notice the scarce amount of whites present in Detroit at its historic bankruptcy in 2013

Gary Edgerton’s book The Columbia History of American Television offers another fascinating glimpse into the most striking example of racial differences in recorded history: when black people arrived on mule-drawn carts in Cape Canaveral – as part of the Poor People’s March – to protest the Apollo 11 moon launch.

From 2010, the Detroit City Council members. Yes, all members were black... the city is the black capital of America

Part of the Columbia Histories of Modern American Life, Edgerton’s work includes quotes from the July 28, 1969 issue of Newsweek and the July 25, 1969 issue of Time. Both periodicals lament the general whiteness of the moon launch:

On July 16, an estimated “1,00,000 earthlings, a record outpouring for a launch, had jammed the beaches near the Cape to give Apollo 11 a lusty, shoulder-to-shoulder send off. Among the gathered multitude were Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, Lady Bird and former President Lyndon Johnson, Senator Barry Goldwater, Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, 200 congressmen, 100 foreign ministers, and 275 leaders of commerce and industry. CBS reporter Charles Kuralt observed that Americans had gone “moon mad.” Time, in contrast, asked, “Is the moon white?” 

“On launch day,” the magazine continued, “the VIP grandstand was a miniature Who’s Who of white America; it was disturbing to notice that black faces were scarce.” Opposition to the expensive space program was especially strong inside the nation’s African American community. “Texas, with its oil wells, large farms, and now space center of the world, symbolizes the affluent America,” said Herbert James, the black field director of the National Welfare Rights Organization, “but there exists in this great state a despicable amount of poverty. Starvation and hunger are taking place within miles of the space center.” 

A "mule-cart procession of the Poor People’s March, led by Ralph Abernathy,” also arrived to protest the Moon launch on July 16. When the civil rights leaders saw the Apollo 11 liftoff, however, “he forgot about poverty and prayer for the safety of the men.” At least temporarily, the Moon landing generated an unprecedented level of interest in the space program, although some cohorts were clearly more excited by the telecast than others. “If to many the moon seemed white, it also seemed middle-aged,” Time further surmised; “the young, who have grown up in the TV and space age, seemed the most blasé of all. (p. 272-273)

NASA Mission Control in Houston, 1969: white America's footprint is on the moon; black America's footprint is 2014 Detroit

Time magazine wrote it was “disturbing to notice that black faces were scarce” at the launch of the Apollo 11, despite that outside of black custodians employed by NASA, there were few blacks involved in the space program.

How dare white America get to the moon without black involvement!

Well, it was only black involvement in the running of Detroit that brought the once proud city to its knees. Sadly, Time or Newsweek won’t lament the “disturbing” lack of black faces that were anything but scarce in the destruction of the city.

Luckily, Ze’ev Chafets 1990 book Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit supplies a quote that helps put into perspective the blight and ruin Detroit has become. In fact, it clearly shows what happens when black faces are no longer disturbingly scarce.

It shows what happens when white faces are scarce.

George Crockett, a longtime black judge in Detroit – during the racial transformation of the city from majority white to majority black – and eventual congressman, was a force in antagonizing the dwindling the white population of the city and convincing them to find new real estate to call home.

Chafets wrote:

A few days earlier, in a special report on the thirteenth District, the local NBC affiliate had called him “George Crockett, Third World congressman” – a reference to both his ideology and the devastation of his district. Crockett chose to take the reference as a compliment.

“Third World?” he mused. “Well, there’s something to that. Detroit is the black capital of the United States. When I first ran for City Council, back in 1965, I predicted that within ten years Detroit would be a majority black city with a black leadership, and I was right. One problem of postcolonial societies is a lack of prepared leadership cadres, especially in places like Angola and Mozambique, which were under Portuguese rule. We’re not quite that bad, but there’s room for comparison. 

“We had a white outflow that I’m not aware has been duplicated in any other metropolitan area in the United States,” he continued. “There is urban-suburban animosity because whites lost money in running, and because they still want access to the library, the symphony, the ballpark, and getting to them is inconvenient. So, that way, too, there is room for comparison to a postcolonial situation.” (p. 118-119)

Detroit was colonized. It was 98 percent white 100 years ago and was more than 84 percent white in 1950. Blacks had nothing to do with building Detroit, but everything to do with the destruction of Detroit.

Blacks remade the city in their image, with whites an increasingly scarce sight in the city. Hell, the currently named GM Renaissance Center was built as a fortress to protect white workers from the increasingly dangerous black city streets.

As the Apollo 11 rocket sat idle, prepared to jettison into space, black people marched for money for their community, using a mule and buggy (items alien even to Africans) to illustrate the dichotomy of white America vs. black America. This picture is from the Poor People's March, circa 1968, just one year prior to the 1st manned moon mission

Underneath the stars, the universe was once ours. Those writers for Time and Newsweek who lamented the overt whiteness of the Apollo 11 moon launch in 1969 were part of the tidal wave of opinion that helped ensure the universe came to become the property of those who remade Detroit in their image.

Blacks.

Those same people who arrived at the July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 moon launch riding a horse and buggy; when juxtaposed with the Apollo 11 rocket, the culmination of individual white people’s collective will and brain power, you get a picture of why Detroit became the city it is today courtesy of black people’s collective will and brain power.

When four black males, accused of attacking a white male in 83 percent black Detroit, and their relatives laugh at their charges, you get a glimpse of the type of community black people create and culture they foster. [At Utash Court Hearing, Suspects' Relatives Laugh At Assault Details, Deadline Detroit, 4-21-14]

When a white immigrant from Australia moves to Detroit to seek his “American Dream” (being a slumlord tenant in an 83 percent black city is somehow a ‘dream’) and gets murdered by one of the black tenants he is evicting, you learn the true nature of what the city being the capital of black America means: one of the people who attacked him – before he was shot to death - stated, ''I'm tired of you white people.' [Detroit witness: 'Kill the dude', The Age World (Australia), 5-28-11] 

A pro-black, anti-white mindset permeates throughout modern, 83 percent black Detroit. After all, to quote Crockett, it's "the black capital of America."

Once, it was federal policy for Americans to reach for the stars; to reach for the heavens.

Today, it is federal policy for Americans to regress to the level of 2014 Detroit; instead of reaching for the heavens, stare blankly at the stars while our future becomes increasingly that of the horse and buggy piloted by blacks back in 1969.

Time and Newsweek published articles back in July of 1969 lamenting the lack of black faces watching the greatest achievement in mankind’s history. Well, European history.

No one dared point out the scarcity of white people involved in the Detroit city government when black capital of America was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2013.