Katherine Johnson's Hidden Figures

In the book Hidden Figures written by Margot Lee Shetterly, Katherine Johnson is one of the main characters. Known as a human computer working for NASA. Katherine is a very smart woman who graduated from college when she was 18 years old and when she was 10 years old she attended high school. She is one of the first African Americans to work for NASA. She would work on some of the hardest calculations and would still find ways to solve them. She was a very hard worker but did not get credit for what she did because she is African American, she made history.

In the following few years, the challenging of segregation persevered and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The law banned discrimination in the employment and public places of business. Prior to this movie, I did not know too much about the space race and how difficult the whole operation was. I had not heard about these three ladies who made big changes in this era.

Hidden Figures is a film based on a remarkable true story about three colored women in the 1960s. The movie follows the lives of Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson, and Kathrine Johnson. These women used their intellect at NASA to contribute to the launch of the first American into space. Hidden Figures also represents the contribution of these women to society. They helped put a man in space, yet they didn’t receive the proper appreciation during their time. Hidden Figures helps give those women gratitude for all that they did for NASA and the United States. Even though this film acknowledges their achievements, it recognizes the hardships the women faced while working for NASA as well as the hardships of all other African American women in the workplace. A few of the hardships they faced were sexism, discrimination, and ageism.

Mary worked with the West Computers for 2 years and then she went to work with Kazimierz Kanreki. He was an engineer working on high speed wind tunnels. While she worked with him he offered her the idea to go back to school to study to become an engineer. For Mary to take classes she had to get permission. She had to obtain permission because Virginia school had not desegregated at the time. Mary got to take her classes and she became an engineer. She got to become NASA’s first African American women to have a degree in engineering in 1958.

The films, Remember The Titans and The Sapphires are both discovering significant social messages of racial conflict. With these messages and the techniques used in both films they have resulted in two powerful films that highlight racial discrimination. This essay will explore the relationship between the filmmaking and the social messages it is trying to highlight, as well as the similarities, differences and techniques shared between both films

The movie itself covers so many pivotal and defining moments in history and provides an intimate observation with a twist of humor and charm that is not often depicted in movies such as these. The movie itself gives an honest insight into situations of the time that are not often addressed. One moment early on in the movie depicts the strong relationship between a single mother and her child in the 1950s, as a rule of thumb television

Bessie Coleman left a legacy not just in Texas but in the United States that few pilots could ever achieve. She may not have been the first African American to earn a pilot's license but she was the first female African American. When people hear of famous African Americans their first thought automatically goes to Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr but nobody has heard of Bessie Coleman. It is thought that Bessie’s life was shaped by the tragedies she endured. First Bessie was born in early 1892 to illiterate parents that were both English-born slaves and that were children of slaves. Bessie’s father left her and his family in 1901. Her mother and two older brothers went to work later that year. Second, being African American during that time made it difficult for Coleman and her family to accomplish anything. Because of these reasons Bessie lived a life of hardships and tribulations. (notablebiographies.com)

Due to the fact that the space race took place between the years of 1957-1975, the height of the civil rights movement was in effect. Considering the fact that much more was happening in the 1950s-60s, the year that this movie is taking place, these people are not incorrect when they say that there was more racial conflict present than just the segregation of colored and white bathrooms. Nevertheless, the purpose of Melfi’s film was not to depict all of the racial injustices towards African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, but an emphasis on how inequality directly affected the work that they did inside NASA. As seen in the film, the primary focus is on the work they do that is imperative to their work at NASA. For example, Melfi shows Vaughan being questioned in the library for looking at a book in the white section of the library. Although she is outside of NASA, Melfi portrays that Vaughan needs the book to learn about how to program the IBM machine at NASA. Melfi’s exclusion of other prevalent racial injustices was for the purpose of focusing all of the attention on what they faced as African-American mathematicians at NASA. John A. Murray writes in agreement, as he writes about the purpose of Hidden Figures, states that “African-American women working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later known

Mae Jemison was the first African-American woman to become an astronaut. She was the first African-American woman in space. I guess you can say she is pretty out-of-this-world. In my essay, I will provide background information on Mae Jemison, her accomplishments, as well as why I think she is out-of-this-world, ambitious, and successful.

Her story blew up in African American news and Bessie Coleman became a household name. It was unheard of that a woman, let alone an African American, was a pilot. Soon Bessie did learn that it was hard to make money off being just a pilot so she returned to Europe to train in acrobatic flying, barnstorming as some may call it. She was going to perform stunts in air shows and that was unheard of! She returned to the United Stated as the first African American woman to earn an international permit to fly in 1921.

Even though being a women was hard enough in the 60’s but being a black woman was even hard or impossible to get a good paying job. She was working for NASA for a while but in 1973 NASA promoted Christine Darden to an aerospace engineer by her superior John V. Becker. Before she got promoted she was doing some stuff that her bosses didn't know about. She got caught and it

Katherine got to work right away, asking to go to meetings that women don't typically go to. She worked long hours to find her calculations. But with the help of the men in the room, she finally came out with a solution. She calculated the exact path John Glenn had to take in order to orbit Earth. The computers also got an answer and John Glenn wasn't going to be 100% confident with the answer until Katherine Johnson checked the work. It took her a day and a half but she got the exact same calculations.

“There is a fascination with the idea that one has 'seen someone else do something' before one can achieve it. Maybe that's true in some cases, but clearly it is not a requirement. I knew what I wanted to do.”-Mae C. Jemison. When the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off on it’s second mission on September 12, 1992, it carried the first African-American women into space. Mae C. Jemison was not only an astronaut, she’s also a physician, a Peace Corps volunteer, a teacher, and a founder and president of two technology companies.

Katherine Johnson born Katherine Coleman was an African-American research mathematician and computer scientist for NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics now known as NASA. She made phenomenal contributions by calculating trajectories, helping to send the first Americans into space.

The movie Hidden Figures is about 3 African American women who work for NASA during the 1950’s.The three women are Katherine Johnson,Dorothy Vaughn,and Mary Jackson.Katherine Johnson had a hidden talent that most of the people that worked at NASA didn't know she had , she was a master with the numbers.Dorothy was the manager of NASA's segregated West Area Computing Unit and she was also good with the numbers,just not as good as Katherine.Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer that worked at NASA,along with the other three girls.Many African American women worked for NASA they just don't receive much recognition but these three women seem to have changed the game for everyone.