Ed Dwight of Denver has spent a lifetime making history, memorializing history, and sometimes being swept up in it.
He was the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate. He sculpted dozens of public monuments commemorating iconic Americans. And he holds the title for the oldest person in space.
Dwight’s most noted brush with history came in the throes of the Space Race. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy directed the space program to add a Black man to astronaut training. After scouring the ranks for a candidate with all the prerequisites, they found the perfect match: Air Force pilot Ed Dwight.
Dwight completed astronaut training, but was denied a chance for space travel. He went on to launch a business career, become a celebrated artist, and find himself the subject of a National Geographic documentary.
Then, 60 years after astronaut training, he launched aboard a Blue Origin rocket and became the oldest person to go to space.
This year, Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and Rep. Joe Neguse introduced a bill to award Dwight the Congressional Gold Medal.
If his life sounds like a movie script, Hollywood agrees. Dwight is in negotiations for a film about his life story.
“These last few years I've been doing nothing but running around the country, getting awards from people and being inducted into halls of fame for everything you can imagine,” Dwight laughed.
On September 9, Ed Dwight turned 92. He reflected on his life with Colorado Matters.
Breaking color barriers started early
Dwight grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, helping his grandmother with chores and accompanying his grandfather on his rounds as a junk man.
“We had a horse and a mule, and we went in his wagon and I was his arms and legs. I'd jump off the wagon — he'd see a piece of metal and I'd throw it on the back of the truck,” said Dwight.
As Dwight and his sister neared high school age, his mother wanted them to continue their Catholic education. She enrolled them at Bishop Ward High School, which was all-white at the time. When the private school realized they were Black, their admission was rescinded.
“So my mom wrote the Pope,” he said.
The Pope ordered the school to integrate. Dwight was the first Black male to graduate from Bishop Ward. It wasn’t always easy.
“It prepared me for my future. It made me not afraid of going out and dealing in a white world,” Dwight said. “You begin to discern who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are, and who can really help, and who won't. And that's the good part of going to an integrated school, where you can study at that level how to conduct your business in a white world. Story of my life.”
Getting caught up in the space race
Dwight had fallen in love with airplanes at an early age and joined the Air Force in 1953.
In 1961, history came calling. President John F. Kennedy set out to fulfill a promise he had made to Black community leaders in exchange for support for his presidential bid: add a Black man to the astronaut training program.
Kennedy directed the space program to find a good candidate. Dwight checked all their boxes. He was a pilot and an engineer. He was the right age and the right height. He was asked to join astronaut training.
“And I said ‘No,’” recalled Dwight.
Dwight had reasons to be wary.
“First of all, I took it to my superior officers. I said, ‘What do you think about this?’ And every single one of them told me, ‘No, don't you touch it. Leave it alone. You’ve got a great career, Ed. You're going to be a general. So leave it alone.’
“Because one of the guys told me, ‘They're going to make hamburger out of you down there, and you're going to lose your Air Force career.’”
That prediction would prove to be right. But in the meantime, another powerful voice chimed in: Dwight’s mother.
“You’d better do this!” Dwight remembered her saying. “Black people are depending on you.”
Dwight listened to his mom. He joined the training.
Then, in 1963, another brush with history: President Kennedy was assassinated.
The tragedy had almost immediate implications for Dwight. Within days, he received orders transferring him to Germany.
“So I got in a plane and flew to Washington, and met with Bobby Kennedy, Attorney General,” said Dwight. “And we sat down in a room and he cut those orders off and said, ‘You're not going anywhere. You're going to stay in training.’”
Still, after his astronaut training was completed, Dwight was transferred. He eventually left the Air Force without ever getting to space.
But history wasn’t done with Ed Dwight.
From making history to commemorating it: a sculptor of American icons
After leaving the military, Dwight moved into the business world. He worked at IBM and then found success as an entrepreneur, opening The Rib Cage chain of barbecue restaurants and starting a real estate development company. Wandering through construction sites, he began to pick up bits of scrap metal, like he used to do with his grandfather.
As a child, Dwight had always loved art, but had put his interest on hold to focus on engineering and the military. Now, later in life, he started experimenting. He welded the scrap metal into abstract art for his home.
His first commission came from George Brown, Colorado’s first Black Lieutenant Governor, who asked Dwight to create his sculpture for the Colorado Capitol.
“I had never sculpted any before. I'd just welded junk together,” Dwight said.
The sculpture was well received. And during their time working together, something else happened: Lt. Gov. Brown sparked Dwight’s interest in Black history.
“He said, ‘Have you ever heard of Harry Tubman?’ I said, ‘No. What did she do?’ And he went down the list. Frederick Douglass. I was 42 years old. I had never heard those names in my life,” said Dwight.
“And I got mad. I had no idea,” he said.
Dwight quit the business world and enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Denver, embarking on a career of sculpting important Black Americans for monuments and memorials.
One of his first commissions when he graduated was from the Colorado Centennial Commission to create bronzes depicting the contribution of Blacks to the American West.
From there, the projects rolled in. His list of installations reads like a “who’s-who” of Black American history and includes Frederick Douglass, Duke Ellington, Harriet Tubman, Hank Aaron, Barack Obama, and the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Denver’s City Park. His work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum.
But when asked to identify a favorite of all the historical legends he has memorialized, he picked a less-well-known subject: His grandparents. The reason?
“All the things they did for me,” he said. “And neither one of them was ever in the sight of a school in their lives. So as a result of that, what they were teaching me were reactions to the human condition, and how to make things better and better and better.”
Through sculpture, Dwight had created a body of work that memorialized and elevated history. And he was going to make history once again.
Oldest person in space
In 2024, Ed Dwight finally achieved what he had trained for six decades earlier. He became an astronaut when he launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket. He was 90 years old.
Despite his training, he wasn’t quite prepared for blast off.
“When the booster lit, it was the damnedest explosion you have ever heard in your life,” he said. “And I thought the thing blew up.”
“I thought I was dead,” he laughed.
He described the experience of being in space as “spiritual.”
“When you look down at that earth, and it's so beautiful and well ordered and innocent looking, and there are no dividing lines between countries, there's no dividing lines between states and the water is beautiful, the mountains, I mean, everything is just, it's just magical,” he said.
Ed Dwight became the oldest person to fly in space. One more for the history book.
