October 30, 2008, Hampton, Virginia, The United States Now that I know that my life is coming to its end, I would like to keep all my memories in this writing. From the moment I was born (September 20, 1910) my parents knew that I would reach to do something big. I can remember as it was yesterday, that after college I started to work as a mathematics teacher at Moton High School when Virginia's public schools and other facilities were still racially segregated. After some time, the president Franklin D. Roosevelt, wanted to end racial segregation and discrimination. With many men being swept into service, NACA had the need to hire women to work. It was then, 1943, when I started working for them. We were a group of African-American women who made complex mathematical calculations by hand. In 1949, I was assigned as the head of the West Area Computers ,replacing a white woman who had died, being the first black supervisor at NACA. I wanted to make an effort working for opportunities for the women in West Computing as well as women in other departments. In 1961 things started to change, and I was lucky to be moved into the area of electronic computing, after introducing the first digital computers at the centre. I had the opportunity of teaching it to my coworkers in order to prepare them to the transition. Without realising, I spent twenty-eight years of my life working for NASA and in 1971 it was time to say goodbye to my biggest achievement. Apart from this, I also collaborated in African Methodist Episcopal Church, where I participated in music and missionary activities. Once I have written this, I would like to thank to all the people who supported me in every moment, and for those people who reach to read this, I would like to help you by saying that we have to fight for anything we want, and that we mustn’t give up at any moment. Lots of love,
Dorothy Vaughan