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in recognition of african american

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history month nasa salutes the

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contributions of african americans to

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the cause of space exploration

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i am vincent lavelle johnson i am the

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chief of the logistics division here at

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the nasa johnson space center

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i used to build the ravel models the

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gemini the apollo the mercury capsules

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put all that together

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even back then

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never gave any real thought of you know

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working for for nasa everything that i

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had seen

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from

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nasa there was

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one particular dynamic that

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was always illustrated and

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it was readily apparent that i didn't

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meet the pigmentation

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qualifications to work at nasa but

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lo and behold later when i found myself

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working out here it was like wow this is

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the the same things that you kind of see

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on on tv

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i find it very interesting that

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the younger side of my life the most

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notable thing during the civil rights

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when dr king was assassinated he was in

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my hometown of memphis and that was for

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the strike on the sanitation workers and

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what a lot of people don't know is the

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african-american

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uh sanitation workers they were striking

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because they wanted at least equal or

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comparable pay

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i'd say that

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the variety and the category and

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classifications of

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employment

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that are potentially available

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to me now

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they weren't available to my they

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weren't available to my dad

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my dad always used to say one thing over

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and over and over as long as we were

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coming up you know always son if you

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follow right right will follow you he