Black Women Scientists
I feel privileged to be able to relate the stories of even a few of the many gifted and talented Black Women in America. We began our stories during Black History Month by honoring black women who were the first to earn PhD’s. We discovered other noteworthy black women in education and then went on to relate the stories of famous writers in both prose and poetry.
In the last post I really enjoyed displaying the pictures of black female artists and their work. This week we continue with our series on Black American Women with the stories of remarkable but overlooked scientists. It’s about time we honor them for their contributions to America. The reason I am posting these stories is to raise the awareness of these women who should be honored and not forgotten. I am so glad that in the last few years Hollywood is making movies about some of their lives.
Three remarkable Black Female Scientists crossed racial and gender lines to contribute important work to NASA. Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson are some of the many forgotten women, especially black women, who achieved amazing things in spite of the prejudice and roadblocks thrown at them. All extremely brilliant women, they were the brains behind the launch of John Glenn into space in the 1960’s space race. Their work helped our country to put a man on the moon.
Hollywood made a movie about these women called Hidden Figures.[1] I have read biographies on Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson and the movie does a pretty good job of relating their true stories. The movie tells what the women went through – early childhood and education, what they suffered in order to be accepted in society, and obstacles they encountered at work. The extras in the special Blu-Ray edition relate more of the many achievements of these incredible women. Here are a few highlights (some of the information obtained through my further research):
Katherine Goble Johnson (August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020)
Katherine was a math prodigy who graduated from West Virginia State College summa cum laude at only age 18. She married and had three children. Sadly, Mr. Goble died of a brain tumor. Later she remarried.
Katherine was an aerospace technologist. She verified the computer’s numbers for John Glenn’s orbit around the earth in 1962, calculated the historic Apollo 11 trip to the moon, and worked on the calculations that helped bring Apollo 13 safely back to earth after it malfunctioned in 1970. In the movie you will hear how John Glenn praised her work. It is a true story!!
Katherine was one of only a few African American women to do computing at Langley’s Research Center in Virginia. She had to contend with both racism and sexism. Our country should be thankful that Katherine did not let prejudice stop her. Along with other black female scientists she should be considered one of the bravest women who ever lived in addition to being faithful and one of the most intelligent.
Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (September 20, 1910 – November 10, 2008)
Dorothy received her training at Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1929. She married Howard Vaughan and they had six children. In 1943, Dorothy went to work at Langley as one of the African American women who were hired due to President Roosevelt’s executive order forbidding racial, ethnic, or religious discrimination in the defense industry as he sought to fill the jobs needed for the war effort. Dorothy was one of the countless female human “computers” who did the math for the space industry.
Later when IBM introduced digital computers to replace the human computers, Dorothy was smart enough to figure a way to keep her job and the jobs of the other women. She taught herself and them the Fortran programming Language for the IBM 704 mainframe computers that NASA was installing. (Just look at that room full of machines in the movie and realize that your cell phone has more computing power than all of that!!) Still more marvelous to me is the fact that Dorothy could keep all of those figures in her head!! This should put an end to the belief that black women are not capable.
Mary Jackson
We already covered Mary Jackson’s story in Black Women in America – Part 5 – “A Tale of Two Mary’s”. You can read more details there. Briefly, Mary became NASA’s first female engineer at the age of 37. She made major contributions in the field of engineering. She was part of the NASA space efforts and received the Apollo Group Achievement Award.
Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. (Psalm115:1).
The movie does show the religious faith of these women. In their biographies though you will find out more what tremendous Christian women they were who believed that God had gifted them for a purpose. They all just wanted to succeed and were willing to overlook the prejudice against them. In that era, blacks were often just happy to have a job. These women also wanted to give back. Their gratitude for what they had should put those of us who have never encountered their obstacles to shame. They are an inspiration!
It is finally time after 60 years that Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary are recognized for their achievements. Though things have changed a lot since the 1940’s and 50’s, there is still a struggle for full racial and gender equality. The stories of these women will go a long way to erase the idea that women, especially black women are inferior.
[1] It is available on Amazon, and I bet you can stream it. Here is a trailer to the movie:
