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History > USA > Civil rights

 

Breaking the color barrier > Science

 

Katherine Johnson   1918-2020

 

 

 

 

Katherine Johnson,

part of a small group

of African-American women mathematicians

who did crucial work at NASA, in 1966.

 

Photograph;

NASA/Donaldson Collection, via Getty Images

 

Katherine Johnson Dies at 101;

Mathematician Broke Barriers at NASA

She was one of a group

of black women mathematicians at NASA

and its predecessor who were celebrated

in the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures.”

The New York Times

Feb. 24, 2020    Updated 10:48 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/
science/katherine-johnson-dead.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden Figures

Official Trailer    20th Century FOX    2016

 

 

 

 

Hidden Figures

Video    Official Trailer [HD]    20th Century FOX    2016

 

HIDDEN FIGURES is the incredible untold story

of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson),

Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer)

and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe)

—brilliant African-American women working at NASA,

who served as the brains

behind one of the greatest operations in history:

 

the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit,

a stunning achievement

that restored the nation’s confidence,

turned around the Space Race,

and galvanized the world.

 

The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines

to inspire generations to dream big.

 

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer,

Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst,

Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge,

Glen Powell & Kimberly Quinn

 

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wfrDhgUMGI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Katherine Johnson   1918-2020

 

born Creola Katherine Coleman

 

Wielding little more

than a pencil, a slide rule

and one of the finest

mathematical minds

in the country,

Mrs. Johnson

(...)

calculated

the precise trajectories

that would let Apollo 11 land

on the moon in 1969 and,

after Neil Armstrong’s

history-making moonwalk,

let it return to Earth.

 

A single error,

she well knew,

could have dire consequences

for craft and crew.

 

Her impeccable calculations

had already helped plot

the successful flight

of Alan B. Shepard Jr.,

who became

the first American in space

when his Mercury spacecraft

went aloft in 1961.

 

The next year,

she likewise helped

make it possible for John Glenn,

in the Mercury vessel Friendship 7,

to become the first American

to orbit the Earth.

 

Yet throughout

Mrs. Johnson’s

33 years in NASA’s

Flight Research Division

— the office from which

the American space

program sprang —

and for decades afterward,

almost no one knew her name.

 

Mrs. Johnson

was one of several hundred

rigorously educated,

supremely capable

yet largely unheralded women who,

well before the modern

feminist movement,

worked as NASA mathematicians.


But it was not only her sex

that kept her long marginalized

and long unsung:

 

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson,

a West Virginia native who began

her scientific career

in the age of Jim Crow,

was also African-American.

 

In old age, Mrs. Johnson

became the most celebrated

of the small cadre of black women

— perhaps three dozen —

who at midcentury served

as mathematicians

for the space agency

and its predecessor,

the National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics.

 

Their story was told

in the 2016 Hollywood film

“Hidden Figures,” based on

Margot Lee Shetterly’s

nonfiction book of the same title,

published that year.

 

The movie starred

Taraji P. Henson as Mrs. Johnson,

the film’s central figure.

It also starred Octavia Spencer

and Janelle Monáe

as her real-life colleagues

Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/
science/katherine-johnson-dead.html

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/24/
katherine-johnson-obituary

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/24/
517784975/katherine-johnson-nasa-mathematician-
and-an-inspiration-for-hidden-figures-
dies

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/
science/katherine-johnson-dead.html

 

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/16/
505569187/hidden-figures-no-more-
meet-the-black-women-who-helped-send-america-to-space

 

https://www.npr.org/2016/09/25/
495179824/hidden-figures-how-black-women-did-the-math-
that-put-men-on-the-moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History > USA > 20th century

 

breaking the color barrier

in arts, media, science and sports

 

 

Apollo 11 > Man on the moon - 20 July 1969

 

 

Civil rights

 

 

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Anglonautes > Arts > Photographers >

20th century > USA > Civil rights

 

Jeffrey Henson Scales

 

 

Doy Gorton

 

 

Danny Lyon

 

 

Doris Derby    1939-2022

 

 

Steve Schapiro    1934-2022

 

 

Fred Baldwin    1929-2021

 

 

Matt Herron    1931-2020

 

 

Don Hogan Charles    1938-2017

 

 

Robert Adelman    1930-2016

 

 

Ernest C. Withers    1922-2007

 

 

Leonard Freed    1929-2006

 

 

Gordon Parks    1912-2006

 

 

James "Spider" Martin    1939-2003

 

 

Grey Villet    1927-2000

 

 

Ed Clark    1911-2000

 

 

Ralph Waldo Ellison    USA    1913-1994

 

 

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