10 Quotes by Ed Dwight

I wanted to be on the cover of Life magazine.

I did this whole series on the buffalo soldiers-on black soldiers-I did another series on black cowboys, and I presented myself to the gallery system, and all these people with these massive collections didn't know there were black cowboys or black soldiers. I ended up hitting a niche I didn't know was there.

There's always a fine line that divides hostility from neutrality, and I don't want to pass that line.

I got this letter asking me if I wanted to or if I would consider going to experimental test pilot school and becoming the first Negro astronaut and I thought it was crazy.

I was welding art from my house, making abstract figures out of metal.

I went to white schools and I didn't know anything about black history.

The basic thing you have to understand is everything that happens on that spaceship, from the time you crawl into that seat to the time it touches down, is controlled from the ground. There's no one thing that makes a good astronaut. I don't know any person with determination and will that can't go to space.

From the time I was a little itty-bitty kid, I was going to the airport every day. I began to study all the airplanes, and I'd draw all the airplanes.

What people don't know is art was my deal and engineering was my sidebar.