Then she opened a door and ushered me in.Īs I stepped into the room, I witnessed something that I'd never seen before: a couple of dozen Colored women sitting at desks, typing on Monroe or Friden desktop calculating machines. My heart beat with excitement as a woman led me over to the Aircraft Loads Building. Katherine Johnson, former NASA mathematician and author of the kids' autobiography "Reaching for the Moon." (Image credit: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing) Related: How 'Hidden Figures' Came Together: Interview with Author Margot Shetterly I was really excited about this job - and as a mathematician I would be getting paid three times as much as I'd been paid as a teacher. I didn't appreciate her comment, but there was a tightrope I needed to walk. "This is just my first day," I replied, taken aback. "Don't come in here in two weeks asking for a transfer," the human resources director told me. I was to report to a branch called West Area Computing and would be on probation for six months. Women whose degrees were in other disciplines were hired to be what were called computers. When I arrived at Langley later that morning, I discovered that since I had a bachelor's degree in mathematics, I would be hired as a mathematician. "I don't know, honey, but I know it will be important." Her story and her grace continue to inspire the world."What secret project do you think the government will have me working on?" I wondered aloud to Jimmie, who lay awake in bed alongside me. “The NASA family will never forget Katherine Johnson's courage and the milestones we could not have reached without her. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine echoed this sentiment, years later, in a tweet regarding Johnson’s passing. “In her 33 years at NASA,” Obama noted, “Katherine was a pioneer who broke the barriers of race and gender-showing generations of young people that everyone can excel in math and science and reach for the stars.” President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, the highest honor for a civilian. Henson in 2016 in the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures.Īfter retiring from NASA in 1986, Johnson became an advocate for mathematics education in public schools. Some of Johnson’s story was portrayed by Taraji P.
She also worked on John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission and, throughout her career, co-authored 26 technical papers-making her one of the first women at NASA to do so. In addition to Apollo 11, she helped calculate the launch window for the Mercury mission in 1961, which was American’s first human spaceflight. Because she could remember geometry (while her male colleagues were a bit fuzzier on it), she proved herself invaluable and would stay there for the rest of her time at the organization.
Two weeks into her job, she helped calculate aerodynamic forces on airplanes. In 1952, she heard that NASA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory was hiring black women. For more than 10 years after that, her life was focused on her family and career as a teacher. She withdrew from her schooling, however, when she found out she was pregnant with her first child. In 1940, she had the chance to return to school by being one of three black graduate students to integrate into West Virginia University. Johnson graduated in 1937 with a double major in mathematics and French.Īfter graduating, Johnson took a job as a school teacher and got married.
He identified that she’d be a good research mathematician and came up with special classes for her. She had a mentor at school named William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor who was only the third black person to receive a doctorate in mathematics from an American university. She entered high school at age 10 and graduated at 14, promptly enrolling in college the next year.īy the time Johnson was a junior in college, she had taken all of the math classes they offered. Her parents arranged for her to attend high school at what’s now known as West Virginia State University. That did nothing, however, to diminish Johnson’s love of math and her obvious talents. As a black woman, she and her family faced segregation and Jim Crow laws public education for black children stopped at the eighth grade. She was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Johnson’s story of a celebrated 33-year-long career is made even more incredible when you consider the era in which this was all taking place.