Important Blacks in the 1980s :: essays research papers

Ronald Ervin McNair, was born on October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina to Carl and drop curtain McNair. He attended North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, where, in 1971, he graduated magna cum laude with a BS mark in natural philosophy. In 1976 he earned his Ph.D. head in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Dr. McNairs many distinctions include Presidential Scholar (1967-71), cover Foundation Fellow (1971-74), and National Fellowship Fund Fellow (1974-75). He was also named Omega Psi Phi Scholar of theYear (1975), was honored as the differentiate National Scientist by the National Society of Black Professional Engineers (1979), and certain the Friend Of Freedom Award (1981).Ronald E. McNair was nationally recognized for his work in the field of laser physics. In 1978, he was one of 35 applicants selected from a pool of ten thousand for NASAs space snort program and depute as a mission specialist aboard the 1984 flight of the shuttle C hallenger. On his send-off space shuttle mission in February 1984, McNair orbited the worldly concern 122 times aboard Challenger. He was the second African American to tent flap in space.In addition to his academic achievements, he received trio honorary doctorates and numerous fellowships and commendations. He was also a sixth degree gruesome belt in karate and an accomplished jazz saxophonist. He was married to Cheryl Moore and had two children, Reginald Ervin and Joy Cheray. On the morning of January 28, 1986, McNair and his six crew members died in an explosion aboard the space shuttle Challenger. JESSE LOUIS JACKSON (b. Oct. 8, 1941, Greenville, S.C., U.S.), American civil-rights leader, Baptist minister, and politician, the first black man to make a serious bid for the U.S. government (in the Democratic Partys nomination races in 1983-84 and 1987-88).Born into a poor family, capital of Mississippi attended the University of Illinois (1959-60) on a scholarship and then transferred to the predominantly black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (Greensboro), receiving a B.A. in sociology (1964). He go to Chicago in 1966, did postgraduate work at the Chicago theological Seminary, and was ordained a Baptist minister in 1968.While an undergraduate, Jackson became involve in the black Civil Rights Movement. In 1965 he went to Selma, Alabama, to march with Martin Luther King, Jr., and became a worker in Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1966 he helped found the Chicago branch of Operation Breadbasket, the economic outgrowth of the SCLC, and served as the organizations national director from 1967 to 1971.