2016 Movie "Hidden Figures" & Information About Katherine Johnson, One Of The African American Mathematicians Behind NASA's Rocket Launches

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides information about the 2016 movie Hidden Figures which is about three African American female mathematicians (Creola Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson) who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race

This post particularly provides information about Katherine Johnson who passed away Feb. 24, 2020.

The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson for their contributions to the world. Thanks to Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the book Hidden Figures about these African American mathematicians. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks also to all those who are associated with the videos that are embedded in this post.

Rest In Peace, Katherine Johnson.

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INFORMATION ABOUT KATHERINE JOHNSON
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson
"Katherine Johnson (born Creola Katherine Coleman; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020), also known as Katherine Goble, was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights.[2] During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".[3]

Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon.[2][4][5] Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program,[2] and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[6] In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.[7] She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE MOVIE "HIDDEN FIGURES"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures
"Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about black female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race. The film stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions. The film also features Octavia Spencer as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe as NASA engineer Mary Jackson, with Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell, and Mahershala Ali in supporting roles.

Principal photography began in March 2016 in Atlanta and was wrapped up in May 2016. Hidden Figures had a limited release on December 25, 2016, by 20th Century Fox, before going wide in the United States on January 6, 2017. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $236 million worldwide. It was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2016[4] and was nominated for numerous awards, including three Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Spencer), and two Golden Globes (Best Supporting Actress for Spencer and Best Original Score). It also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Plot
In 1961, Katherine Goble works as a human computer in the West Area Computers division of the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, alongside her colleagues, aspiring engineer Mary Jackson and their unofficial acting-supervisor Dorothy Vaughan. They are all African-American women: the unit is segregated by race and sex.

Following the successful Soviet Union's launch of Yuri Gagarin, pressure to send American astronauts into space increases. Supervisor Vivian Mitchell assigns Katherine to assist Al Harrison's Space Task Group, given her skills in analytic geometry. She becomes the first black woman on the team. Katherine's new colleagues are initially dismissive and demeaning, especially head engineer Paul Stafford.

Mary is assigned to the space capsule heat shield team where she immediately identifies a design flaw. Meanwhile, Mitchell informs Dorothy that she will not be promoted, as there are no plans to assign a "permanent supervisor for the colored group".

Mary receives encouragement from her team leader, a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor, to apply for an official NASA engineer position. When she submits her application, she is told by Mitchell that despite her mathematics and physical science degree she will never be a NASA engineer because she would need to take certification courses. These are offered at the all-white nearby Hampton High School, so despite her husband's opposition, Mary decides to file a petition for permission to attend.

Katherine meets African-American National Guard Lt. Col. Jim Johnson at a barbecue, but she is disappointed when he voices skepticism about women's mathematical abilities. He later apologizes, and begins spending time with Katherine and her three daughters.

When Harrison invites his subordinates to solve a complex mathematical equation, Katherine develops the solution, leaving him impressed. The Mercury 7 astronauts visit Langley and astronaut John Glenn goes out of his way to be cordial to the West Area women computers.

Harrison is enraged when he finds out that Katherine is forced to walk a half-mile (800 meters) to another building to use the colored people's bathroom. Harrison abolishes bathroom segregation, knocking down the "Colored Bathroom" sign himself. Harrison allows Katherine to be included in their meetings, in which she figures out how to calculate the space capsule's re-entry. Despite this, Stafford has Katherine remove her name from reports, insisting that computers cannot author them. They are credited solely to Stafford. Meanwhile, Mary pleads her case in court and wins over the local judge by appealing to his sense of history and being on the right side of it, although he restricts her to night classes at the segregated school.

Dorothy learns of the impending installation of an IBM 7090 electronic computer that threatens to replace human computers. She visits the computer room to learn about it, and successfully starts the machine. Later, she visits a public library, where the librarian scolds her for visiting the whites-only section, to borrow a book about Fortran. She steals the book, teaches herself programming and trains her West Area co-workers. When NASA learns of her new skills, she is promoted to supervise the Programming Department; she accepts only on condition that 30 of her co-workers are transferred as well. Mitchell finally addresses her as "Mrs. Vaughan" rather than "Dorothy".

As the final arrangements for John Glenn's launch are made, Katherine is reassigned back to West Area Computers. Harrison tells her the demotion is beyond his control and that they no longer need computers in their department.

The day of the launch, discrepancies are found in the IBM 7090 calculations for the capsule's landing coordinates. Astronaut Glenn requests that Katherine be called in to check them. She quickly does so, only to have the door slammed in her face after delivering the results to the control room. However, Harrison gives her a security pass. After a successful launch and orbit, a warning indicates the capsule's heat shield may have come loose. Mission control decides to land it after three orbits instead of seven and Harrison suggests that they leave the retro-rocket attached to the heat shield to help keep it in place. The Friendship 7 successfully lands.

Following the mission, the mathematicians are laid off and ultimately replaced by electronic computers. Katherine is reassigned to the Analysis and Computation Division, Dorothy continues to supervise the Programming Department, and Mary obtains her engineering degree and gains employment at NASA as an engineer. Stafford brings Katherine a cup of coffee and accepts her name as a report co-author.

An epilogue reveals that Katherine later calculated the trajectories for the Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle missions. In 2015, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The following year, NASA dedicated the Langley Research Center's Katherine G. Johnson Computational Building in her honor."

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Video #1: The African-American women behind NASA's rocket launches



CBS This Morning, Sep 7, 2016

A group of women at NASA called "human computers," many of them black, helped put a man on the moon. Their intellect was an essential part of America's ability to launch rockets into space. Jan Crawford shows us how they were relegated to a footnote in history -- until now.
-snip-
Here are two comments from this video's discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
1. xqmeimitas, 2016
"I find the real story in this documentary and biographical movie to be not that nasa was inclusive what really happened is that there was simply no other people with the capacity to do the work thus leaving them with no choice but to hire the best knowledgeable people men or women black or white american or foreign for the advancement of the white agenda meaning economy"

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2. Alphonso Del Toro, 2017
"Wake up America and give overdue recognition and honor to these great blacks that have contributed so much to our country."

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Video #2: The Stream - NASA's 'Hidden Figures'



Al Jazeera English, Sep 15, 2016
-snip-
Here are some comments from this video's discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
1. lisa bradley, 2016
"I'm So thrilled these women got the recognition they deserved!"

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REPLY
2. GraiShawn Landry, 2017
"lisa bradley Far from it. No doubt, this is a start to getting these women the recognition they need but we have a LONG WAY to go. Until we can say they got what they deserved. Why aren't they in history books today"

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REPLY
3. lisa bradley, 2017
"GraiShawn Landry That is a good question WHY??? I'll tell ya why bc of the ignorant racist world we live in. I'm not here to judge but these wonderful talented beautiful ladies definitely deserved to have been treated with respect and put in our history books & celebrated. I'm still smh & ashamed of this country's past. I pray daily"

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4. Jake Taylor, 2016
"on a visit to KSC I saw a panel with information about Mrs. Johnson, was surprised to see about twelve African-American women astronauts (2015)."
-snip-
"KFC" ="Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located in Merritt Island, Florida, is one of ten National Aeronautics and Space Administration field centers. Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight" [wikipedia]

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5. Jellou Ray Macayan, 2016
"She didnt look like african american 🤔🤔🤔"

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REPLY
6. Diana Thomas, 2017
"Yes she did. The problem is that you dumb butts today do NOT understand ALL OF THE COLORS OF BEING BLACK. We range from blonde/blue eyes to midnight black/dark eyes."

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REPLY
7. Henri-Paul BOLAP, 2018
"Max Black According to racial sandards prevailing then, yes. If she had Black ancestors in her lineage, up to I don't know for how many generations back in time, she was Black from the mainstream, mainly WASP's point of view"
-snip-
The first commenter referred to the fact that Katherine Johnson was very light skinned. There are African Americans (and other Black people) who are lighter than Katherine Johnson was, but because of the United States' now unofficial "one drop of Black blood" rule, she and those other light skin people were considered Black. Note that both Katherine Johnson's biological parents may have been Black, and both of them need not have been light skin for her to have been light skinned. Read my comment below about the United States' "one drop of Black blood" rule.

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8. Audrey Martin, 2017
"AlI we ever were taught was about Martin Luther king that was wonderful but l am Glad to know this. I hope more of our colored, Black, African American history comes to the big screen and the class rooms of the world. I love the title of the book (Hidden figures) because so much of our American history is hidden , and African history from Americans"

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9. ASSETS OVER LIABILITIES, 2017
"W e definitely need more women in STEM"
-snip-
"STEM" - "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, including Computer Science"

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10. K Mac. 2018
"This was an incredible movie and I had no idea this occurred. Amazing.

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