Guion Bluford

Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr., Ph.D. , , is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who was the first African American in space. Before becoming an astronaut, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he remained while assigned to NASA, rising to the rank of Colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second person of African ancestry in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Mndez.

Bluford was born November 22, 1942, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Overbrook High School in 1960. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 1964, an Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology in 1974, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Laser Physics, again from AFIT, in 1978, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of HoustonClear Lake in 1987. He has also attended the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

Source: Wikipedia