Hey guys! Welcome back to the blog! I hope everyone who attended THON is catching up on sleep and is feeling reflective of all the good we accomplished this past weekend! P.S., we are only one week out from break! Let’s get on to today’s blog!
The woman this week is truly amazing. She is most known for calculating the trajectories that allowed Apollo 11 land on the moon and come back. She also aided in getting Alan B. Shepard Jr, as well as John Glenn, into space. However, though she worked tirelessly in NASA for 33 years, she remained anonymous in the public during, and after, her time because no one acknowledged her contributions. It was not until 2016, when Hidden Figures debuted, the world knew her name.
And her name is: Katherine Johnson.
This past Monday, sadly, Johnson passed away at 101 years old. Johnson is symbol of strength, gratitude, and hope for women, especially in STEM, around the world. Beyond the fact that her gender prohibited her from sharing the limelight with her male counterparts, it was also due to the fact that she was African-American, in the height of Jim Crow, that placed obstacles in front of her and the estimated 3 dozen other African-American women in NASA (source). Johnson and her counterparts were subjected to segregated work spaces and bathrooms from white men and women. I highly recommend watching Hidden Figures is you haven’t, it depicts Johnson’s, and her two friends Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson, life during her time as NASA.
Katherine grew up loving numbers. She recalls counting everything that was around her. Her passions when she was little stemmed from the anticipation of taking higher level math courses once she entered High School. However, the segregated school systems in West Virginia only allowed black children to have education up to sixth grade. Because of this, her family moved across the state to attend a high school that would allow Katherine and her siblings to attend. Katherine Johnson entered high school at age 10 and graduated at 14 years old.
In recent years, Katherine Johnson has been receiving awards that recognize her work in science. In 2015, President Obama awarded Katherine Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian awards, citing that her efforts with NASA is something that does not go unnoticed and should be celebrated. In 2017, NASA dedicated a building in order to commemorate Johnson by naming it the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.
Unfortunately, Katherine Johnson’s story is not unique. One of the biggest flaws history is it’s tendency to omit women from it. This flaw transcends politics and science, as it is seen in all sectors of the workforce. Women like Katherine Johnson, who contributed so much to the evolution of their respective industry, rarely get to reap the benefits of their success that they work so hard to provide. Often, the identity of a women who produced amazing work is often concealed or stamped by a male colleague’s name so it can be taken seriously. I hope that as we progress as a society, the idea of a woman advancing her industry or completing huge milestones is something that we don’t turn a blind eye to but, something we celebrate.
And that is all for today guys! Be safe this weekend!
Brianna Mitchell 🙂