I Counted Everything: A Brief Biography Of Katherine Johnson

Math is often seen as a difficult subject to consume and fully understand. Many of us have experienced times where we become frustrated with mathematics and make it seem impossible. The wish to understand math were especially impossible to African-Americans in segregated America where not every child was given quality education. Katherine Johnson, an African-American NASA mathematician, experienced the inability to attend advanced math courses due to her race. It came with great effort to be where she is today in society. Her works were hidden and barely spoken about. However, her legacy stands with history.

As a result, she lacked confidence in her education. She stated, “My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunities which the present day affords and which even our common schools now afford. I was never sent to any school; I was always sick.” Even though she did not attend a formal school it did not put her out of reach of a proper education (Peterson, 9).

Mama isn’t book smarts by any means, she says, “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down” (Everyday use pg3). This is because in 1927,

Starting her second education, she was forced to drop out to care for her ailing grandmother. With Jim Crow’s Law, heavily in affect, her childhood was greatly influenced by the segregation between white people and black people in almost every part of their lives.

Johnson dreamed of becoming a famous inventor and during his teenage years began to grow more curious about the way things worked and more ambitious in his experimentation. "Lonnie tore up his sister's baby doll to see what made the eyes close," his mother later said. one time, he almost burned the house down when he attempted to cook up rocket fuel in one of his mother's saucepans and the concoction exploded. in 1969, Johnson attended Tuskegee University on a scholarship. He earned a bachelor's degree

college. Even though she might have grown up with a hard life, she fought for different ways to

Annie Easley was born April 23, 1933 in Birmingham, Alabama. Born to Mary Melvina Hoover and Samuel “Bird” Johnson. Annie and her older brother were raised by their single mother in Birmingham. Starting from 5th grade all the way through 12th, Annie attended parochial schools. Parochial schools were schools that related only to a church theme. She attended the Holy Family High School. While in high school Annie thought that becoming a nurse or a teacher were the only jobs that were open to African American women. Since Annie didn’t intend on becoming a teacher, she intended on becoming a nurse. Towards the end of high school, Annie decided to purse becoming a pharmacist. She would end up deciding to purse pharmaceutical medicine while graduating valedictorian of her class. After graduating high school valedictorian, Annie Easley attended the Roman Catholic University where she majored in pharmaceuticals. Annie spent two years in the program. The Roman Catholic University would later be called the Xavier University of Louisiana.

8. When she was a teen she went to many different schools. She first went to St. Mary school, then St. Lawrence, Pattenville and university of Missouri. Her favorite subject in school was art. She graduated Pattenville high school in 1970. She took art for 4 years in high school.

Katherine Johnson was born August 26, 1918 and lived to be 99 years old. She was loved by many people including her spouse James Johnson and her later spouse James Goble. Also by her three girls Constance, Katherine, and Joylette Goble, and loved even more by her proud parents, Joylette and Joshua Coleman. She was one of three african americans to integrate to West Virginia’s School is something many people wanted to do but never did. She was so smart that she started High School when she was 13 and enrolled in college when she was only 18! She graduated with the “highest honors” in 1937. After that she took a job in teaching at a black public school in Virginia.

From an early age, Mrs. Terrell was taught that value of a good education. She left her hometown at an early age to enroll in an elementary school at the Antioch College

She would recall this event later on in her writing, in which she accused leaders of the company of using unfair tactics to put not only her father, but many other small oil companies out of business. As for schooling, she graduated at the head of her high school class in Titusville and went on to study at Allegheny College in 1876. She also graduated there in 1880 as the only woman of the class. After graduation, she began her career as a teacher in Poland, a city in Ohio. She taught geology, geometry and trigonometry classes as well as multiple languages. After two years of working in that profession, she realized teaching was not for her and that she enjoyed writing a lot more- this prompted her to pursue a career as a journalist

As Kate grew up, she not only showed an interest in the outdoors, but she showed promise in the fields of math and science, a field that saw little female participation. Once she became old enough, Kate attended the University of Toronto where she studied Math, Physics and Astronomy. At University she won the prestigious Edward Blake scholarship twice and a gold medal for her

My mother and grandmother, Rebecca Jackson Jones, both held the same degrees. Eva’s, early education truly included the school of hard knocks, at 12 years of age, her parents sent her to “Normal School” in Mound Bayou, Ms. To pay for this “private schooling” Eva had chores; emptying chamber pots (chamber pot is a portable container used as a toilet in the bedroom.), hauling wood along with starting the morning fire.

never go to school. All of this was taken away from her at such a young age, when she

From the beginning of the movie, the smart mind of Katherine Johnson; she was a real genius that humanity needs. After finishing school, she applied to work for NASA. She could solve the math problems that the white men could not solve. When she first came to work at the Space Task Group, which is calculating the coordinates of takeoff and landing for the spaceship, she got none of the respect from her white colleagues, especially Paul Stafford, but she was not discouraged. She gained the attention of her boss, Mr. Al Harrison. One day, Mr. Harrison couldn’t find her in the office, when she got back to her work, Mr. Harrison was mad at her and ask:” Where has she been?” Then, she replied that she has to walk half miles away from the office, where she was working on the building that has a bathroom for colored peoples. After that, Harrison went to the building that Katherine has to walk half miles every day to go