Who was the first African American in space?

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, becoming the first African American to fly to space. He remained a USAF officer while assigned to NASA, advancing to the rank of colonel. Between 1983 and 1992, he flew on four Space Shuttle missions. As a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the STS-8 mission in 1983, he became the first African American and the second person of African origin in space, following Cuban astronaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.

Bluford was chosen as a NASA astronaut as part of NASA astronaut group 8 in January 1978. Nichelle Nichols recruited him as part of a NASA initiative to boost the number of minority and female astronauts. They trained for a year before being named astronauts in August 1979. His technical responsibilities have included Space Station operations, the Remote Manipulator System (RMS), Spacelab systems and experiments, Space Shuttle systems, payload safety issues, and flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) and the Flight Systems Laboratory (FSL).