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News / Nation & World

First black astronaut honored on 50th anniversary of death

By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press
Published: December 8, 2017, 6:39pm
2 Photos
Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. is introduced at a news conference in El Segundo, Calif., June 30, 1967. Lawrence was part of a classified military space program in the 1960s called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, meant to spy on the Soviet Union.
Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. is introduced at a news conference in El Segundo, Calif., June 30, 1967. Lawrence was part of a classified military space program in the 1960s called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, meant to spy on the Soviet Union. Associated Press files Photo Gallery

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — America’s first black astronaut, Air Force Maj. Robert Lawrence Jr., finally got full honors Friday on the 50th anniversary of his death.

Several hundred people gathered at Kennedy Space Center to commemorate Lawrence, who almost certainly would have gone on to fly in space had he not died in a plane crash on Dec.

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