Black History Month (BHM): Recognizing Hidden Figures
“Their path to advancement might look less like a straight line and more like some of the pressure distributions and orbits they plotted, but they were determined to take a seat at the table.” ― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures
Hidden Figures was released in movie theaters in 2016 and is based on the non fiction book by Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly. THe film follows the story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program. African American female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronatautics 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 Spenser as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as NASA engineer Mary Jackson.
1) Have you seen the movie Hidden Figures? If so, what were your thoughts?
2) How important is it for us to know about Hidden Figures in our own histories?
1: I have not seen it at all
2: It's important to remember that there a lot that happened in the rocket lauching and that we need to reflect on how there was this big racial issue as well.
