The United States may not have won the Space Race had it not been for the contributions of three African-American women.

World War II left the US with a shortage of male labor, leading various federal agencies to begin hiring women. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 into action — creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee and prohibiting race-based discrimination in hiring for defense industry jobs. Coupled with high demand for mathematicians in the defense industry at the time, it was a perfect storm of political factors that opened up new career avenues for African-American women.

One of the agencies that brought in female mathematicians was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the NACA, which would be dissolved and reformed into NASA in 1958). The NACA created a pool of female mathematicians (internally referred to as “the computers who wore skirts”) at the Langley Research Laboratory in Hampton, VA. At the time if you heard the term “computer” it was likely in reference to a person who performed calculations and not a machine.

In hiring women, the thinking at the time was that women’s smaller hands and attention to detail made them ideal for the sort of repetitive mathematical work that NACA required of them. Of course the women were also paid less than their male counterparts. The salary capped out at about $2,000 a year (about $20,000 today), 40% less than what white males were paid for the same work. And women were never allowed to tackle the larger conceptual and analytical work. They basically did the grunt math work for the male engineers at a time when slide rules and pencils were the dominate tools of the trade.

But even among the female workers racial lines were drawn. This was a time when Jim Crow laws were still in effect, segregating African-Americans under the auspices of “separate but equal.” African-American women were sequestered into the west area of the Langley campus – earning them the collective name, The West Area Computers. Adding further irony to the situation was the fact that the land the West Area was built on was still partially registered as a plantation. Yes, the African-American women mathematicians technically worked on a plantation.

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The West Area Computers attracted talented graduates from some of the nations top historically black colleges including Virginia State, Hampton Institute, and Wilberforce University. And as the launch of Sputnik heated up the Space Race, mounting pressure beat Russia to the moon, the West Area Computers would make significant contributions to the aerospace industry as well as the Civil Rights Movement.

Three of them in particular, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Winston Jackson are especially noted for their contributions and will be subjects of the Hollywood film, Hidden Figures, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae in the respective roles. The film, based on an upcoming book by Margot Lee Shetterly is set to hit theaters in January 2017.

Who were these three women who played a pivotal role in America’s space program?

Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson is the big hero of our story. Born in West Virginia in 1918 she showed an early aptitude for math – graduating from high school at the age of 14 and graduating from West Virginia State college with a degree in mathematics at the age of 18. She went on to graduate school at West Virginia University, where she was among the first to desegregate the school.

In 1953 Johnson’s pursuit of a career in mathematics brought her to NACA, where she became part of the West Area Computers, working on calculations for guidance and navigation systems. For the next five years Johnson’s work caught the attention of her supervisor and fellow mathematician Dorothy Vaughan, who pushed for Johnson to be re-assigned to Langley’s Flight Research Division in 1958 when NACA transitioned to become NASA.

When NASA formed its Space Task Force – charged with getting an American astronaut to the moon, preferably sooner than later, Johnson was the only non-white, non-male member of the team. During her time there her trajectory calculations were vital to the success of several historic space missions, including the Mercury missions of Alan Shepard and John Glenn, as well as the Apollo 11 moon landing. When tragedy struck the crew of Apollo 13, Johnson was among the team of engineers working on solutions to bring the astronauts home safely.

In an 2011 interview with WHROTV, a Hampton, VA public access station, Johnson recalled that though NASA had begun using computers (machines, not people) for calculations during her time there, the feeling was that the mathematics performed by humans was more reliable. Mathematicians like Johnson were often called to double-check the work of the machines. “When [John Glenn] got ready to go up he said, ‘Call [Johnson], and if she says the computer is right I’ll take it.’ ” Johnson told WHROTV.

Johnson retired from NASA in 1986 and, despite the political climate in which she did her work, she told a WHROTV interviewer that she didn’t really feel discriminated against at NASA. “I didn’t feel the segregation at NASA, because everybody there was doing research,” Johnson said. “You had a mission and you worked on it and it was important to you to do your job.”

Katherine Johnson still resides in Hampton at the age of 98. In 2015 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for her lifetime of work. In a press release from NASA about Johnson’s honor, Charles Bolden the current administrator of NASA (and the first African-American to hold the position) said, “Katherine’s legacy is a big part of the reason that my fellow astronauts and I were able to get to space; it’s also a big part of the reason that today there is space for women and African-Americans in the leadership of our nation, including the White House.”

Dorothy Vaughan

Dorothy Vaughan (pictured right alongside other “human computers” at NACA). graduated from Wilberforce University with a degree in mathematics and worked as a high school math teacher until she was hired by NACA in 1943. While working at the Langley Research Center, Vaughan eventually became the head of the West Area Computers, with a number of talented female mathematicians working underneath her – including Katherine Johnson. Well respected in her role, Vaughan was often tapped to recommend women for various projects throughout the organization. It was this position that allowed her to recommend mathematicians like Johnson toward the prestigious work they would later take on.

A gifted mathematician in her own right, Vaughan headed up the West Area Computers for nearly 10 years. In 1958 the formation of NASA also brought an end to the segregated work units on the Langley campus. Vaughan and many other former members of the West Area joined NASA’s Analysis and Computation Division (ACD), a racially and gender-integrated group focused on research around data communications and networking. Today it is known as the Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) and focuses on IT technology, including cybersecurity.

As a member of the ACD, Vaughan became a specialist in FORTRAN programming (which was a relatively new programming language at the time) and contributed to the Scout Vehicle Launch program for launching satellites into orbit. Vaughan retired from NASA in 1971 and passed away in 2008 at the age of 98.

Mary Winston Jackson

Mary Winston Jackson graduated from Hampton Institute in 1942 with degrees in mathematics and physical science. Like Vaughan she was a school teacher until she was hired by NACA in 1951 as a member of the West Area Computers (supervised by Dorothy Vaughan). In 1953 she moved to NACA’s Compressibility Research Division, which focused on high-speed flight and had already built the X-1, the first of NASA’s various, famed X-Plane projects.

Jackson’s work focused on analyzing data from real-world flight and wind tunnel experiments. After the formation of NASA in 1958, Jackson joined a special training program, after which she was promoted to an aerospace engineer and focused her work on aerodynamics research.

More than her research however, Vaughan is remembered as a champion in helping women and minorities advance their engineering careers. She was known to encourage women and minorities to undertake the necessary training to have their job function upgraded from “mathematician” to “engineer,” so that more career opportunities would be available to them.

Jackson worked as an engineer at NASA for 34 years. She eventually shifted her career away from engineering and served at NASA as the Federal Women’s Program Manager in the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and as the Affirmative Action Program Manager until her retirement in 1985. Jackson passed away in 2005 at the age of 83 leaving behind a legacy as a trailblazer in helping African-American engineers find employment in the aerospace industry.

Watch the trailer for Hidden Figures:

Chris Wiltz is the Managing Editor of Design News

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Who Was Marcus Garvey?

Marcus Garvey was an orator for the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Garvey advanced a Pan-African philosophy which inspired a global mass movement, known as Garveyism. Garveyism would eventually inspire others, from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement.

Early Life

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. was born on August 17, 1887, in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. Self-educated, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, dedicated to promoting African Americans and resettlement in Africa. In the United States, he launched several businesses to promote a separate Black nation. After he was convicted of mail fraud and deported back to Jamaica, he continued his work for Black repatriation to Africa.

Garvey was the last of 11 children born to Marcus Garvey, Sr. and Sarah Jane Richards. His father was a stonemason, and his mother a domestic worker and farmer. Marcus Sr. was a great influence on Garvey, who once described him as “severe, firm, determined, bold, and strong, refusing to yield even to superior forces if he believed he was right.” His father was known to have a large library, where young Garvey learned to read.

At age 14, Garvey became a printer’s apprentice. In 1903, he traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, and soon became involved in union activities. In 1907, he took part in an unsuccessful printer’s strike and the experience kindled in him a passion for political activism. Three years later, he traveled throughout Central America working as a newspaper editor and writing about the exploitation of migrant workers in the plantations. He later traveled to London where he attended Birkbeck College (University of London) and worked for the African Times and Orient Review, which advocated Pan-African nationalism.

Founding the United Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.)

Garvey’s Philosophy and Beliefs

Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1912 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.) with the goal of uniting all of African diaspora to “establish a country and absolute government of their own.” After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, the American educator who founded Tuskegee Institute, Garvey traveled to the United States in 1916 to raise funds for a similar venture in Jamaica. He settled in New York City and formed a U.N.I.A. chapter in Harlem to promote a separatist philosophy of social, political, and economic freedom for Black people. In 1918, Garvey began publishing the widely distributed newspaper Negro World to convey his message.

Black Star Line

By 1919, Garvey and U.N.I.A. had launched the Black Star Line, a shipping company that would establish trade and commerce between Africans in America, the Caribbean, South and Central America, Canada and Africa. At the same time, Garvey started the Negros Factories Association, a series of companies that would manufacture marketable commodities in every big industrial center in the Western hemisphere and Africa.

In August 1920, U.N.I.A. claimed 4 million members and held its first International Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Before a crowd of 25,000 people from all over world, Marcus Garvey spoke of having pride in African history and culture. Many found his words inspiring, but not all. Some established Black leaders found his separatist philosophy ill-conceived. W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent Black leader and officer of the N.A.A.C.P. called Garvey, “the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America.” Garvey felt Du Bois was an agent of the white elite.

Under Surveillance By J. Edgar Hoover

But Du Bois wasn’t the worst adversary of Garvey; history would soon reveal F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover‘s fixation on ruining Garvey for his radical ideas. Hoover felt threatened by the Black leader, fearing he was inciting Black people across the country to stand up in militant defiance.

Hoover referred to Garvey as a “notorious negro agitator” and for several years, desperately sought ways to find damning personal information on him, even going so far as to hire the first Black F.B.I. agent in 1919 in order to infiltrate Garvey’s ranks and spy on him.

“They placed spies in the U.N.I.A.,” said historian Winston James. “They sabotaged the Black Star Line. The engines… of the ships were actually damaged by foreign matter being thrown into the fuel.”

Hoover would use the same methods decades later to obtain information on Black leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Charged and Deported to Jamaica

In 1922, Garvey and three other U.N.I.A. officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line. The trial records indicate several improprieties occurred in the prosecution of the case. It didn’t help that the shipping line’s books contained many accounting irregularities. On June 23, 1923, Garvey was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years. Claiming to be a victim of a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, Garvey appealed his conviction, but was denied. In 1927 he was released from prison and deported to Jamaica.

Garvey continued his political activism and the work of U.N.I.A. in Jamaica, and then moved to London in 1935. But he did not command the same influence he had earlier. Perhaps in desperation or maybe in delusion, Garvey collaborated with outspoken segregationist and white supremacist Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi to promote a reparations scheme. The Greater Liberia Act of 1939 would deport 12 million African Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment. The act failed in Congress, and Garvey lost even more support among the Black population.

Death and Accomplishments

Garvey died in London in 1940 after several strokes. Due to travel restrictions during World War II, his body was interred in London. In 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken to Jamaica, where the government proclaimed him Jamaica’s first national hero and re-interred him at a shrine in the National Heroes Park. But his memory and influence remain. His message of pride and dignity inspired many in the early days of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. In tribute to his many contributions, Garvey’s bust has been displayed in the Organization of American States’ Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C. The country of Ghana has named its shipping line the Black Star Line and its national soccer team the Black Stars, in honor of Garvey.

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Bro Father Ibrahim of Sierra Leone

Bro Dougie

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