Hidden Figures is set in the South in the 40s-60s, when the Civil Rights movement was taking hold and segregation laws were gradually getting overturned. ( One of the trailers would have you believe that a white man tore down that sign the book does not indicate anything of the sort.) When she got to Langley, the restrooms were still segregated, though the book notes that she refused to comply with that particular rule. It’s kind of astonishing to think she was born before the 19th amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote, and she grew up going to segregated schools. She was awarded the Presidental medal of freedom in 2015 and is probably the best known of NASA’s black women mathematicians.
Katherine Johnson, one of the women featured in the book and film, is still living. There just isn’t room to tell all of their stories, but the women Shetterly chooses to feature are inspiring representatives of this group of scientists. In her research, Shetterly found that dozens of women worked as “computers,” mathematicians, or engineers at Langley.
HIDDEN FIGURES BOOK REVIEWS MOVIE
The movie will doubtless take liberties with the history-it’s a drama, not a documentary-but it looks like an inspiring, entertaining film, and I can hardly wait to see it.Īlthough the book and film focus on a just few of the black women who worked for NASA and its predecessor NACA, they were not alone. It was originally advertised as coming out early next year, but I’ve seen rumors that it will open in some theaters on Christmas this year, qualifying it for the Oscars. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe. Hidden Figures has also been made into a movie starring Taraji P.
There’s nothing wrong with celebrating their bravery and achievements, but Hidden Figures makes it clear that there were more brave people working behind the scenes, too. It’s a reminder that John Glenn and Neil Armstrong didn’t make it into space and safely back home again by themselves. Margot Lee Shetterly’s book, which came out in September, describes the previously unsung work of the black women mathematicians and engineers who worked at the Langley Research Center in Virginia and helped NASA put people into orbit and on the moon. Reading Hidden Figures with Williams’ words in the back of my mind made me see this book as another example of how our culture gladly uses black people’s work without giving them the credit they deserve, in this case reinforcing our society’s stereotypes about what a scientist looks like. As much as we want to pretend science is immune to cultural biases, it’s not. This happens in pop culture-everything from Elvis to trend pieces about cornrows that make it sound like white women invented them-but it’s not just there. Among other things, he points out the hypocrisy in the way white Americans consume black culture without actually respecting the people who create it. With a major movie due out in January, this book-club natural will be in demand.I’ve watched Jesse Williams’ powerful speech from the BET awards this past June several times. The breadth of her well-documented research is immense, and her narrative compels on every level. This is an incredibly powerful and complex story, and Shetterly has it down cold. Shetterly does an outstanding job of weaving the nearly unbelievable stories of these women into the saga of NASA’s history (as well as its WWII-era precursor) while simultaneously keeping an eye on the battle for civil rights that swirled around them. What she did not know was that many of the women, particularly African American women, were employed not as secretaries but as “computers”: individuals capable of making accurate mathematical calculations at staggering speed who ultimately contributed to the agency’s aerodynamic and space projects on an impressive scale. As the daughter of an engineer who became a highly respected scientist, she was aware of the town’s close ties to NASA’s nearby Langley Research Center and also of the high number of African Americans, like him, who worked there. On a trip home to Hampton, Virginia, Shetterly stumbled upon an overlooked aspect of American history that is almost mythic in scope.
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