A Proud Teenager
Listener Rebecca Rogers shares a memory of her family gathered around the TV and looks back on how Apollo 11 offered a positive story during a contentious time.
Music:
View Transcript
Rebecca Rogers: Hello BackStory. This is Rebecca Rogers. I live in Augusta, Georgia now but when Apollo 11 landed I was living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was a 15-year-old and I had been avidly following the space program since I was really just a little kid. I’m kind of a child of the space age. But I do remember, as many Americans did, my whole family splayed out on the living room floor and couches watching our big floor-model black-and-white television. We were mesmerized. I was awestruck by the idea that these pictures were coming more or less live from the moon. I couldn’t get over that.
Rebecca Rogers: But I had followed the space program since way back when. They were sending animals. I think the Soviets sent up a dog, and I worried about him. Then America sent up a chimpanzee, and I worried about him. And then they began to send up the men, and that was very exciting. I remember I think I memorized all the names of the Mercury Seven. You know how little kids like to memorize lists. So my schoolmates and I were pretty good at rattling off the names of all the astronauts. But it was a fascinating time. The anniversary’s brought back a lot of wonderful memories.
Rebecca Rogers: Looking back at the moon landing, and of course this is from the perspective of a young teenager, it was a very confusing time in America. A lot of the things that we saw on television were quite disturbing and confusing. The racial riots had taken place. There were political confusion, and so as a young woman, I enjoyed paying attention to our space race because it was such a positive story. It was something, not just our country, but the whole world was focused on. My family had just recently returned from South America, so I was really feeling proud as an American. I was happy to be back in my own country. I was really proud of what our country was able to accomplish for the whole world.
View Resources
Moon Landing Lesson Set
On July 20, 1969, the United States celebrated an amazing scientific achievement: landing the Apollo 11 on the surface of the moon. As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two men to walk on the lunar surface, the American public watched with nationalistic pride. This singular moment was the culmination of a decade of extensive efforts by the U.S. government and the scientific community. It also served as a public declaration of international supremacy during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
This lesson reflects on the legacy of the “space race” during the 1960s. Fifty years after the fact, the moon landing is still celebrated as one of the greatest achievements in human history. However, this era is also often treated with an uncritical nostalgia. For many Americans, the Apollo 11 mission represents a moment of unity at a calamitous time in American history. For other Americans, the “space race” was a distraction from the fight for civil rights and the intractable conflict in Vietnam.
As you go through the lesson, encourage students to think critically about these contradictions. Why does the Apollo 11 mission remain the subject of American nostalgia after fifty years? What role did the space race play in advancing social, economic, and geopolitical interests? How should we reflect on this time period as students of history?
