NASA Astronaut Winston Scott returned last week to Carver Elementary, the school that set him on his path to space, to dedicate the school’s new History Wall.
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published by WLRN Public Media on January 13. The Spotlight is re-publishing this story under a partnership agreement with WLRN.
NASA astronaut Winston Scott has seen the world from miles above — but his beginnings took root in Coconut Grove.
Scott, 74, served as a United States Navy Captain, logged more than 24 days in space and is a master of the trumpet. The spaceman credits his achievements to the foundational education he received at George Washington Carver Elementary in his native Coconut Grove, which he attended before Miami schools were integrated.
At more than 125 years old, Carver Elementary continues to be an education hub for the Grove community. Last week it unveiled a wall commemorating its history and notable alumni – including Scott – to teach current students about its legacy.
“Growing up in Coconut Grove in South Florida was a whole lot different than it is now,” Scott told WLRN. “The neighborhoods were segregated, the schools were segregated, there was the all-Black section of Coconut Grove. It was a big city, but [there was] truly a sense of community.”
In 1965, six years after a federal court ruled in favor of school desegregation in Miami Dade, Scott became one of the first Black students to attend Coral Gables High.
“It was actually a smooth transition,” he said. “We just moved over and became part of the school.”
But it was still an adjustment. At Coral Gables High, he was surrounded by groups he hadn’t been exposed to before.
“Growing up in the all-Black Coconut Grove, I didn’t have exposure to other cultures like Cubans, Jewish families – it was just all Black. So, when I got to Coral Gables, it really broadened my horizons.”
But when the bell rang and the school day ended, segregation still loomed. Black students traversed through dangerous U.S. 1 to head back home to the Black Grove, while white students were more likely to live nearby.
“ We crossed that six-lane highway, there was no wait/walk light, or anything,” Scott said. “We’d stop, and when there was an opening, we’d dart across the highway, and then take a cut through the lumber yard across the railroad tracks and then walk up to the Gables.”
The odyssey to school didn’t stand in the way of his education. It was an opportunity he seized, Scott said, especially for the facilities at Gables High.
“ Books at Carver were all old hand-me-down beat-up books. So we would make book covers out of newspapers, old paper bags from the grocery store to protect the books,” Scott said, “because they’d have to be handed down to the next group coming behind us the following year.
“When I got to Coral Gables, not only did I get new books, but if I had to buy a special book for class, the school actually had a bookstore on campus. I couldn’t believe it. I’d just go to the school bookstore and buy a book. That was amazing to me.”
But it was the teachers at Carver that planted the seeds for his future ambitions.
“I got a really good, solid, strong foundation at Carver. We would talk about the space program,” Scott said, “because the space program was so new then.” They talked about how people would be selected, flown into space, and how one day people would conquer the final frontier, he said.
He studied music at Florida State University, but took science and engineering courses on the side. It was through those classes that he found his calling.
“Coming out of Coconut Grove – the segregated Coconut Grove – I didn’t know what engineering was. I didn’t know what physics was. Even after I got to Coral Gables, I wasn’t exposed to engineering and science.”
A Calling to Space
At FSU he learned what engineering was all about.
“And I knew that I was supposed to be doing that,” Scott said.
Scott became a Naval Aviator in 1974, two years after graduating from FSU. He went back to school and earned an MS degree in aeronautical engineering with avionics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in California.
In 1992, NASA selected him for astronaut training. Four years later, he went on his first of two missions to space. He was a spacewalker on both missions.
Seeing the earth from the edge of the atmosphere left Scott speechless. The panoramic view of the globe, peaceful and fragile, renewed his meaning of mankind.
“When you look at the turn of the news, there’s nothing but turmoil and strife all over the world,” Scott said. “But when you’re up there, it’s all very peaceful, quiet, and very beautiful. The earth is so bright and colorful and pretty – and you don’t see any division.
“So you just really wonder if and when we’ll ever get to the point where we don’t have all that strife and divisiveness and evil here on earth, like the way it looks from up there.”
Scott currently resides in Melbourne, Florida, and is the director of operational excellence at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Natalie La Roche Pietri is an education reporter at WLRN Public Media.
