Bolden in His Own Words

摘要

Charlie Bolden's path to the top job at NASA began 50 years ago in the racially segregated American south. There, a determined Boiden decided that if he were to win appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., he would need to bypass Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and the other white lawmakers in his state at the time. "I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, and at the time, a congressional appointment was out of the question," Bolden said in a 2004 interview for a NASA oral history project. Beginning his freshman year of high school, Bolden wrote his state lawmakers annually asking for an appointment. He also took the additional step of including then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson in his annual round of letters.