Katherine Johnson: Born to Break Barriers

On August 26th, 1920, women were granted the right to vote in the United States. On that very same day, Katherine Johnson was celebrating her 2nd birthday. Knowing what she went on to achieve in her life, it’s not a surprise that she was born on the day now referred to as Women’s Equality Day.

Katherine Johnson is a mathematician, best known for her remarkable 30 year career with NASA. But to understand how an African American woman came to work with NASA in the mid to late 1900s, we have to go back to the 1930s and 1940s.

Source: NASA

 

Before space flight was a reality, the government was busy studying aeronautics – testing and improving planes. This work was mathematically very intense, churning out large sets of data on a regular basis. To deal with the overwhelming amount of data, the government decided to create a “computing pool”. And they hired all white women to do the job.

At the time, if you were a woman and had a degree in science or math, you were destined to teach for the rest of your career. It didn’t matter what you were interested in – you were pushed into the world of education. So the government recognized that they could open up the job of “computer” to this pool of talented mathematicians.

That’s right: their job title was “computer”. They computed all day and one who computes  is a computer. (Keep in mind this was before electronic computers were abundant)

Until 1943, the women who were hired as computers were entirely white. But the demand for computers was so high that they eventually hired African American women. The government was also facing pressure from civil rights groups to diversify. So the very first group of segregated women mathematicians began at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia.

The women did a variety of jobs, whether it was recording data from instruments measuring effects of model planes in wind tunnels or using theoretical mathematics to build more efficient planes.

Katherine Johnson quickly garnered national attention, calculating the trajectory for Alan Shepard (the first American in space) in 1961.  When John Glenn became the first astranaut to orbit Earth in 1962, he used a computer to calculate his trajectory. But he asked Katherine Johnson to verify the calculations before he felt comfortable going.

Katherine Johnson was a pioneer, along with her fellow “computers”. She received a number of awards in recognition of her important calculations. But perhaps most importantly, at age 97, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the nation’s highest civilian award and it was given to her by President Barack Obama on November 24th, 2015.

She was a woman who defied every obstacle placed in front of her. She knew she had a talent for math and worked to ensure the safety of countless space missions. And she left an unforgettable impression on the history of space flight.

Happy Black History Month, readers! May Katherine Johnson’s story inspire you. Want to read more? Check out these great stories about her life:

“Katherine Johnson: The Girl who Loved to Count”

“Katherine Johnson: A Lifetime of STEM”

“Katherine Johnson – National Visionary”