INSPIRATION
Katherine Johnson : A Hidden Figure No More
written by Dana Costa
I’m a sucker for a good underdog story. I flock to them on Netflix. I love them even more when they are based on true events. That’s how I felt when I saw the first trailer for Hidden Figures in 2016. I had every intention of going to see it in the theaters, but, you know...life. When I finally saw it in 2018 or so, I felt all the feels. I was sad and happy and frustrated and enraged and dumbfounded...and inspired. I realized that women like those portrayed in Hidden Figures were the women who bravely fought for the opportunities I have now. I didn’t know it—or about them —until I was almost 50-years-old, and I felt less for it. If you are not familiar with the award-winning film based on the non-fiction book by Margot Lee Shetterly, it follows three women of color who fought discrimination in color and race segregated in the 1960s to be instrumental in the United States’ space race with the So-
viet Union: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson. Then, as I was writing the first feature in our Celebrating Kick-Ass Women series in February 2020, Ms. Katherine Johnson had just passed away at the age of 101. I watched Hidden Figures again in her honor but I needed to know more about Ms. Johnson, and the parts of her life not depicted in the movie. I was blown away at what I found. Born in West Virginia in 1918, Ms. Johnson excelled in school but because African-American girls couldn’t go to school past 8th grade, she transferred to a school 130 miles away from home. Her family split their time between the two towns in order to support Ms. Johnson’s education. She graduated from high school at age 14. She graduated with honors from West Virginia State, a historically black college, at age 18 with degrees in mathematics and French. Typical for women at the time, Ms. Johnson
sources: Wikipedia; Biography.com.; NASA.gov; Houston Style Magazine. 10
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