Katherine Johnson's Hidden Figures

Dr. Charles Drew, a renowned African-American physician, and the women of "Hidden Figures," a group of brilliant African-American mathematicians, both faced numerous challenges in their personal and professional lives. Despite facing discrimination and prejudice, they persevered and worked hard to achieve greatness. Their remarkable achievements have left a lasting impact on the world, and their stories continue to inspire people from all walks of life. Dr. Charles Drew faced several challenges in his career. He faced racial discrimination during his college years, where many medical schools in the United States barred African American students from entering their programs.

Her work experience and historical knowledge is clear, and her historical facts and figures can be checked using the many primary and secondary sources she sites in her bibliography. However, she does tend to focus on minute details of the lives of the women she discusses that are of lesser importance than their achievement or political lives, such as the explanation of Felton’s husband’s career and political viewpoints. However, her narrative gives insight into the differing values of white and black women at the time and what was seen to be acceptable for a woman, and a woman of color, to say and do, as well as the consequences they faced for defying racism, male-dominance and widespread

Many women weren’t showed respect from men for the color of their skin or their gender, so it took courage for women like Mary Jackson to stand up for themselves or their work. In the book Hidden Figures, it states, “ Something didn’t seem right to the manager who assigned the work. He insisted that Mary’s calculations were wrong. Mary Jackson respectfully stood by her work. Mary and the division chief reviewed the number and finally discovered that the problem wasn’t with her output it was with his input: he had given her the wrong numbers to use!...But having the independence of mind and strength of personality to defend your work in front of the most powerful aeronautical minds in the world-that’s what got you noticed.”(Shetterly 91-92).

In the book Hidden Figures the characters had to balance their personal and professional lives, both of which were incredibly demanding. This example is actually particularly similar to college. Students either jump right into college after high school or take a break in-between. Either way, it can be a huge adjustment. A huge part of college is juggling school work and still pursuing a personal life. Katherine Johnson not only had to deal with this huge adjustment but also problems simply because of the color of her skin. During this time period, she couldn’t even use the restroom in her place of work. She was forced to walk a mile just to find a colored bathroom. I am actually from Greenbrier county, WV which holds White Sulphur Springs.

Throughout the movie, for some reason, Katherine Goble(later known as Johnson) received the most screentime. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918, Katherine Goble’s (later known as Johnson) intense curiosity with numbers had her attending a high school around the campus of West Virginia State College by the age of thirteen. Five years later, a man named professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor (historically known as the third African-American to earn a PhD in mathematics, right after Dudley Weldon Woodard in second and Elbert Frank Cox with first) had taken an interest in Katherine’s way of thinking, taking her in as his pupil. After graduating in 1937 with highest honors, Katherine took a job teaching at an all African-American

“Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition that he or she has overcome to reach his goals.” This powerful quote by Dorothy Height illuminates the value of living to your fullest potential despite your circumstances and the limits that have been set for you. Being an African American woman in the early to mid-1900s, Dorothy Height had an abundance of obstacles to face and overcome. During this time, African Americans and women were still fighting to earn their natural rights. Height was a key figure in both the civil rights and women’s rights movements, often even called the “godmother of the women’s movement”. She did not conform to the limitations of society; she refused to accept the idea that she should be restricted based on her race or sex.

In the movie Hidden Figures the producers and writers of the movie touch base on multiple points as well as teach valuable lessons. Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson, is an outstanding american idol. In the 1960s blacks were not seen as equals nor were women yet she, being both black and a woman, out did her colleagues. Using Euler’s Method to solve a problem on a blackboard that her and her team were over seeing at the time. By using Euler’s Method they were able to solve the equation and send John Glenn into space to orbit the earth seven times and safely bring him back home to earth.

In Hidden Figures the theme of the book is the theme of the time period in the United States at that time, which is the suppression of people do to their race and gender. This was still relevant during the beginning of the war. Even though Langley and NACA were hiring African women they still were segregating them and giving them unequal treatment and pay. Mary Jackson is extremely talented but however because of her race and gender she is constantly looked over. This injustice to women shown in the book just represents how unequal the world once was. No matter how smart a women was “Most of the country’s top engineering schools didn’t accept women.... Being an engineer, Mary Jackson would eventually learn, meant being the only black person, or the only woman, or both, at industry conferences for years.” (Shetterly 144). Even with the lack of opportunity that was presented for the main characters they were able

In 1910, a group of black women activist in Savannah spoke about the brutal lynching of eleven African Americans. They spoke against the brutal lynching of Mary Turner who was capture and murder with her eight months old unborn child (445). They saw this as injustice because they brutally murder a pregnant woman who was protesting the murder of her husband and was accused of killing a white person (445). The outrage felt by Black women call for the establishment of Federation of City Colored Women’s Club. The women passed a resolution that they send to President Woodrow Wilson, Governor Hugh Dorsey, and the president of the state and local white women’s club federations who allowed them to published their resolution in the Savannah Tribune titled “Negro Women Hold Humiliation Service.” This was a way of protesting against the brutality against women who had a similar experience as Mary Turner

Sojourner Truth’s words in her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” served as an anthem for women everywhere during her time. Truth struggled with not only racial injustice but also gender inequality that made her less than a person, and second to men in society. In her speech, she warned men of “the upside down” world against the power of women where “together, [women] ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!” Today, America proudly stands thinking that Truth’s uneasiness of gender inequality was put to rest. Oppression for women, however, continues to exist American literature has successfully captured and exposed shifts in attitude towards women and their roles throughout American history.

Harriet Jacobs, Frances E. W. Harper, and Anna Julia Cooper are three African American female writers who have greatly impacted the progress of "black womanhood." Through their works, they have successfully dispelled the myths created about black women. These myths include two major ideas, the first being that all African American women are perceived as more promiscuous than the average white woman. The second myth is that black women are virtually useless, containing only the capabilities of working in white homes and raising white children. These myths caused these women to be degraded in the eyes of others as well as themselves. In Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harper's Iola Leroy, and Cooper's A

During the 19th century, black women faced a plethora of hardships culminating from hundreds of years of oppression and denigration while simultaneously fighting for equal rights with all other women. One of the biggest obstacles that was necessary to overcome was one of the most common ideologies of the West, the Cult of True Womanhood. This Victorian ideal of womanhood defined women within a domestic sphere and required them to be subservient to their husbands (Broude). These women gave up much more than their rights outside of the home, they were taken advantage of physically, mentally and sexually. The majority of women during this time did not meet this standard of true womanhood and never could hope to. This ideal and the common stereotypes of the time were questioned by an African-American woman named Sojourner Truth.

Under the cruel oppression derived from characters during slavery, black women produced a strong determination to make a difference for themselves, children and community. Whether they were in the public eyes or not, black women adequately

African American women experienced the civil rights movement, Bernard and Onwubiko state that people, especially men, did not want black women to rise up out of oppression of their society and succeed (57). The authors declare that “the freedom for black women and the poor generally in the Americas was transformed to encompass the notions of anti-imperialism, equal opportunity and justice,” which before in the decades, African American women did not have social, political economic and legal freedoms (Bernard and Onwubiko 59). Black women back then were not paid

The United States has observed an era of progressive activism for women. But, feminism is by its nature a complex notion and one can’t fully appreciate its effectiveness forgetting the aspect of ethnic discriminations in the country (Collin, p.p 47). Race matters exist in diverse places and at unusual times under extensively unreliable circumstances. It is different from white feminism as they have managed to attain their own freedom in a different way. This was because Black women were hardly seen as an active figure in such movements over the history. Currently, the issues of black feminism are hardly discussed at any forum. One must agree with the fact that black women have now managed to get significant positions in many fields.