Controversy over John C. Stennis name leads to campaign to change space center, ship
A campaign fueled by social media aims to change the name of Stennis Space Center in Hancock County and the USS Stennis aircraft carrier.
William Pomerantz, vice president of special projects at Virgin Orbit, sent out a volley of tweets June 24 outlining why he thinks it’s time for the Stennis Space Center to get a new name.
“Space friends: maybe it’s time we had a talk about the fact that one of NASA’s main campuses is named after a person who has been called ‘the heart, soul, and brains of the white supremacist caucus in the 1948 Congress,’” he tweeted.
It was the same day NASA announced it was naming its headquarters building in Washington, D.C., after Mary Jackson, the first African American engineer at NASA, who was immortalized in the book and movie “Hidden Figures.”
Pomerantz’s social media campaign came two days after Laurin Stennis, granddaughter of late Sen. John C. Stennis, announced June 22 she would quit promoting the Stennis flag she designed as a replacement for the Mississippi state flag. Stennis said she understands “the hurt and potential harm my last name can cause.”
The Mississippi Legislature voted June 28 to retire the flag that featured a Confederate battle emblem and replace it with a new design.
Now a group of Republican members of the Mississippi delegation in Washington, D.C., added their comments to the debate, saying they “strongly oppose” any efforts to change the name of the space center in Mississippi.
U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, and Reps. Steven Palazzo, Trent Kelly and Michael Guest said a statement Thursday, “Removing Senator Stennis’s name from the facility he was instrumental in creating would do nothing to advance the cause of justice in our nation.”
Who was John Stennis?
Pomerantz said he’s worked in the space industry his entire career but had never had never heard of John C. Stennis until recently and didn’t know how Stennis Space Center got its name.
President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order in 1988 changing the name of the NASA rocket testing center to John C. Stennis Space Center. Before that, it was known through the years by the names of Mississippi Test Operations, Mississippi Test Facility and National Space Technology Laboratories.
Reagan said in the executive order that “Stennis Space Center would not exist without his strong support for our nation’s fledgling space program, and his personal advocacy for the project to the residents of Hancock County,” according to the statement by the Mississippi delegation.
They called Stennis “a principled and fair-minded leader with a keen interest in promoting our national security.”
Sen. Stennis represented Mississippi from 1947 to 1968, and his voting record shows he supported racial segregation. He voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
He later supported the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1982, but then voted against the designation of a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Why the change?
In a summer when statues and the Mississippi flag are coming down, brand names are being swapped and people are marching for racial justice, there are many calls for more changes.
Pomerantz said that all of NASA’s main facilities are named for white men — two for presidents (Kennedy, Johnson), two for heads of agencies (Ames/NACA, Langley/Smithsonian); two for astronauts (Glenn, Armstrong); one for the pioneer of rocketry (Goddard); one for a cabinet member (Marshall), and one for a “segregationist U.S. senator” (Stennis).
The NavyTimes published an article last month asking if it’s time to change the name of the aircraft carrier that’s also named for Stennis.
Reuben Keith Green, a retired Black lieutenant commander, wrote in “Proceedings,” the U.S. Naval Institute’s magazine, about the Stennis name.
“I often have thought about what it must be like for a minority sailor to receive orders and serve in the USS John C. Stennis,” Green wrote. “Most sailors — and Navy leaders — have little idea of his background, but the Navy, as an institution, has a moral obligation to know.”
A change could come sooner if NASA decides to give the Hancock County testing facility another name, or it could remain the same as it’s been for 32 years if the Mississippi delegation’s calls for keeping it NASA Stennis Space Center.
