Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. The #1 New York Times bestseller The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Hidden Figures: The American Dream And The Untold Story Of The Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win The Space Race Katherine is extremely modest even though she has a lot to be arrogant about. As she says, “It’s like shooting a sawed-off shotgun from a thousand feet and getting that one BB through a hole so tiny, you can’t even see it.” Katherine knows it’s important to keep on fighting, but she wonders if it’s really going to make a difference. And her male coworkers can’t handle the fact that a woman is smarter than they are.
She is prohibited from attending Pentagon briefings. She must walk for half a mile to the “colored” restroom. She can’t pour coffee from the office’s communal coffee pot because no one wants her to touch it.
Although Katherine is starting to break race and gender barriers at NASA, she is constantly reminded of her lower status. Given that Katherine is an expert in analytic geometry, NASA has been recruited to join a team of white men to figure out the math for the planned orbital launch that is only a few weeks away. She misses her late husband more than anyone.Ĭhallenge. They go to church, have neighborhood barbecues, and play card games.
JOHN GLENN AND KATHERINE JOHNSON NASA FREE
spending the little free time she has with her friends and family. She analyzes the manometer levels for air displacement, friction, and velocity, and computes over ten thousand calculations by cosine, square root by hand. They are considered human “computers,” responsible for calculating complex mathematical equations that are being used to prepare astronaut John Glenn for his mission to become the first American to orbit Earth. Employees are segregated by race and gender, so she works in the “colored group” with 19 women including her good friends Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson. working at NASA in the Langley Research Center. in Virginia with her three daughters and her mother.
She went on to become the first black female student at West Virginia University Graduate School. She excelled in math at a young age, and she was given a scholarship in sixth grade to attend a school for black children that actually went beyond the eighth grade.
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