Summary
On October 5, 1957, Christine Mann, a high schooler in North Carolina, reads about the controversial integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. She also reads about Sputnik, the USSR’s satellite—October 5 is the official dawn of the space age, and America is behind. By the time Mann graduates from high school, the Soviets have launched two more satellites and a dog, Laika, into space; the US launched two satellites, though eight of the eleven attempted launches failed. The Washington Post reports in 1958 that one-third of Soviet engineering grads are women—while only a few years ago, Mary Jackson had to petition the City of Hampton to take classes at a local high school.
For Katherine Goble, Sputnik means a renewal of energy at Langley, which had been so airplane-minded that engineers were “admonished” by Congress to not waste taxpayer money on spaceflight. Now, those engineers who secretly dreamed of “science fiction” get to bring their ideas into work—and Goble’s talents are perfect for it.
Dorothy Vaughan, head of West Computing, sees that by 1956 more black women are working with engineering groups than in West Computing itself. General computing pools are made redundant by the specialized research groups at the lab. Though the state of Virginia is still aggressively resisting desegregation, the broader American trend (and the trend at Langley) is toward equality—mostly because, with the Russians winning, “even local racial policy [turns] into fodder for the international conflict.” The NACA’s legal counsel wrote in 1956 that 80% of the world’s population is colored—so America oppressing colored people looks really, really bad on a global stage, as America tries to get allies. In May 1958, West Computing is dissolved, and in October 1958, the NACA fused with competing government operations to form the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. With West Computing dissolved, Vaughan, now 48 years old, begins her career at NASA as just one of the girls.
There isn't a lot of existing reference material about spaceflight, so Henry Pearson (head of Goble’s branch, the Flight Research Division) organizes a “self-education” lecture series where different engineers present on their specialties related to space tech. Goble is asked to prepare charts and equations for these lectures, but she isn't allowed to actually attend. Men do the analytical thinking; women do the calculations. By consistently asking if she can join the lectures, Goble finally gets permission to attend in 1958, joining the editorial meetings at what would become the Aerospace Mechanics Division at NASA.
The transition to NASA on October 1, 1958, doesn't change much about Langley, and mostly the same people do the same jobs. The Space Task Group is formed, and they plan Project Mercury, America’s first manned space program. The state of Virginia isn't a paragon of progress, though; the official policy of "Massive Resistance" to integration still affects schools, and that same year, Virginia’s governor chains the doors of any school that attempts to integrate. Black people observe a huge lag between legal change and real social change. Black parents like Vaughan, Jackson, and Goble encourage their children to excel in segregated schools. (The Virginian school board paid the Goble daughters, and others, to attend the local black school, even though they were zoned to the white school.)
Goble meets a military man named James “Jim” Johnson at church choir practice, and they fall in love. In 1959, NASA reveals the “Mercury Seven,” the seven astronauts for Project Mercury, including John Glenn. Goble proves invaluable in calculating the trajectory for John Glenn’s eventual orbital flight. With Henry Pearson’s approval, she and Ted Skopinski co-author a report on this trajectory, the Azimuth Angle report. It's very rare for a woman to be a co-author, and Katherine finishes the report herself, signing the 1960 publication with her new married name: Katherine Johnson.
Mary Jackson (now officially an engineer) helps her son, Levi Jr., build a soapbox car for the 1960 Virginia Peninsula Soap Box Derby, which he wins. She’s a massive proponent of black and female advancement, volunteering and sponsoring events, giving lectures to inspire young women to pursue science. She knows her work is thanks to the women who came before her, and she intends to open that wall as much as possible for the people who come after. Levi Jr. is the first black boy to win the derby, and Jackson knows “the best thing about breaking a barrier was that it would never have to be broken again.”
Analysis
Throughout Hidden Figures, Shetterly puts emphasis on Mary Jackson's humanitarian drive. Her family has roots in Hampton, Virginia, and those roots are community-oriented; she was raised to always help a neighbor, to lead by example. As she helps her son succeed at the soapbox derby, she spends her free time inspiring other young people as well. Her lectures to young women are given alongside a white mathematician, as they hope to uplift all women, not just their own race.
In this section, the NACA becomes NASA, and with it, there's a cultural shift around Langley—suddenly, their work is cool. The eggheads, the NACAites, are now the superheroes supporting the Mercury Seven. With national interest comes more funding, and with more funding comes more opportunity. Fitting with the book's theme of interconnectivity, this increase in opportunity is an inverse to the social situation for young students in Virginia. Rather than integrate its schools, Virginia closes them; they pay black parents to have their children attend black schools, even if they're zoned to the local white school. The state of Virginia has long maintained a practice of sponsoring black graduate students to pursue degrees in other states, so that Virginia's graduate programs can stay white-only.
The difference from previous decades is that Virginia's behavior is now an outlier, not a norm. American legislators have begun to realize that they'll need to rethink their discriminatory policies in the rapidly shifting Cold War environment. The USSR's appropriate use of their female engineers shames America, as the USSR quickly outpaces America in technological development. In America, the idea that men are "inclined" to be engineers or critical thinkers persisted well into the 70s (and in some places persists to the present). To get on an even playing field, America needs to use every resource, even those that had been systemically disenfranchised on a federal level since the nation's foundation.
The protagonists experience this disenfranchisement, but for Katherine Goble, others' reactions to her are simply their problem. She knows she deserves to be in the "self-education" lectures—she's preparing the notes for them, after all—and, since she knows she deserves to be there, she's confident enough to ask. Repeatedly. She doesn't go out of her way, but every chance she gets, she asks, until eventually there's more reason to let her in than keep her out. This isn't exactly a protest, but her behavior aligns with the steadfast, patient, unyielding nature of other national protests like sit-ins, making change one small drop at a time.
