by Edison R. Wato Jr. at the NMAAHC

July 11 marks an important date for the Museum that we hope you’ll join us in celebrating because it is Lonnie Bunch’s 10 Year Anniversary with the Museum. On July 11, 2005, Lonnie became the founding director for the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture.

I hope you will participate in this celebration in a personal way by adding your message to the Anniversary card for our esteemed director Lonnie Bunch. Please sign the card today.

In 2005, the Museum had no staff, no collection, and no building. In just ten years, we now have over 130 staff members, our collection contains more than 32,200 objects, and we are scheduled to open the Museum in fall 2016!

Over the past ten years there have been several building milestones Lonnie has overseen as director:

• In January 2006, the Smithsonian Board of Regents voted to build the Museum on a five-acre site on Constitution Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets N.W.
• In April 2009, Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup selected as the architectural team for the museum.
• In February 2012, members of the Smithsonian family gathered along with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for a groundbreaking ceremony at the building’s future construction site.
• In October 2014, we celebrated the midpoint of construction for the Museum.
• In April 2015, workers began the installation of 3,600 cast-aluminum panels of the architecturally dramatic “corona” surrounding the outside of the building.

So much to celebrate. So much to be grateful for. So much to look forward to.

Please share your thoughts with us as we celebrate Lonnie’s anniversary and look ahead to the future.

Thank you again for your continued support of the Museum and for helping to make our celebration so special.

Sincerely,

Edison R. Wato Jr.
Membership Program Director

Christa McAuliffe was an American teacher, selected from more than 11,000 applicants to be the first teacher in space. Tragically, she died just 73 seconds after liftoff of the space shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts.

She is remembered as a heroine by her profession by attempting to touch the future. Beginnings Sharon Christa Corrigan was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 2, 1948. Her parents were Edward and Grace Corrigan; she was the eldest of five children. Her family moved to the Boston suburb of Framingham when she was still young. She graduated from Marian High School in 1966. Christa attended Framingham State College, and majored in history. She received her bachelor of arts degree in 1970. Christa married her longtime boyfriend, Steve McAuliffe, a few weeks following her graduation. Shortly after they married, the couple moved to Washington D.C., so Steve could attend law school.

Christa taught until their first child, Scott, was born. She went back to college to earn her master’s degree in school administration from Bowie State College in 1978. Shortly after that, the couple moved to Concord, New Hampshire, where their second child, Caroline, was born. Steve began his law practice, and Christa stayed home with the children.

A celestial opportunity Christa McAuliffe accepted a social studies teaching position at Concord High School in 1982. Two years later, she learned of NASA’s search for a teacher to fly on the space shuttle. NASA was looking specifically for someone who could teach classes while in orbit. McAuliffe could not pass up the opportunity. She filled out the 11-page application, mailed it at the last minute and waited. When she became a finalist, she still did not believe she would be the one picked; some of the other hopefuls also were doctors, authors, and even scholars. On July 19, 1985, however, Christa McAuliffe was selected by NASA to be the first teacher in space. Considered by her students to be an “inspirational human being, a marvelous teacher who made their lessons come alive,” McAuliffe lived up to her nickname, “Field Trip Teacher.” She insisted it was direct experience that made the most effective teaching tool — her upcoming voyage on the Challenger being the “Ultimate Field Trip.” In addition to seeking an innovative teacher, NASA was looking for a regular person to whom regular people could relate; McAuliffe was that person. She would be an ordinary person — to do the extraordinary.

A training regimen In the fall of that year, MacAuliffe took a year’s leave of absence (NASA paid her salary) to train for the 1986 space shuttle mission. She would be a payload specialist on the STS-51-L crew, teach lessons from space, and keep a journal of her experiences. McAuliffe wanted to show the crew that she was not just along for the ride and could work as hard as they did. The other crew members treated her as a part of the team. She trained with them for 114 hours, and when it was time to launch, she was ready.

The worst outcome However, on January 28, 1986, only 73 seconds after lift-off, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The entire world watched in horror and disbelief. McAuliffe’s mission to space ended in abrupt tragedy. Her motto was, “I touch the future, I teach”. She continues to teach by example to this day.

Posthumous honors The young teacher/astronaut has been honored at many events. She was awarded the Congressional Space Medal. The Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, New Hampshire, and the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove, Utah, were named in her memory, along with the asteroid 3352 McAuliffe and the McAuliffe moon crater. Numerous schools have been named after her as well.

u-s–history.com

600+ union members are on strike for better treatment, benefits, and decent pay raise. People have worked 12’s 7 days a week for months some the past year. We are ready for change to see our family and kids. Help us end Frito-Lays greed and stop them from treating their workers horribly and keeping them away from our family’s. 

Birthday – Nelson Mandela was born the son of a Tembu tribal chieftain on July 18, 1918, at Qunu, near Umtata, in South Africa. He became a lawyer, joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1944, eventually becoming deputy national president in 1952. In 1964, he was convicted for sabotage as a result of his participation in the struggle against apartheid. He spent the next 28 years in jail, but remained a symbol of hope to South Africa’s non-white majority. Released in 1990, he was elected was elected President of South Africa in 1994 in the first election in which all races participated.

The preamble is an introduction to the highest law of the land; it is not the law. It does not define government powers or individual rights. Establish Justice is the first of five objectives outlined in the 52-word paragraph that the Framers drafted in six weeks during the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787.

The preamble sets the stage for the Constitution (Archives.gov). It clearly communicates the intentions of the framers and the purpose of the document. The preamble is an introduction to the highest law of the land; it is not the law. It does not define government powers or individual rights.

Establish Justice is the first of five objectives outlined in the 52-word paragraph that the Framers drafted in six weeks during the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787. They found a way to agree on the following basic principles:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

uscourts.gov