Hidden Figures

Story based on the book of Margot Lee Shetterly (Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women who Helped Launch the Nation Into Space, 2016).

The story takes place during the Cold War. The Cold War was a worldwide fight to become the first in every way possible. The space race was one of the many other ways to determine who's the best.

The movie's events occurred during the Civil rights movement in the United States, more precisely in the 1960s.

The movie exposes the groundbreaking and inspiring fight of African-Americans in the 1960s so that they could finally integrate among the white society, remembering that it was a time when racial segregation was still legally enforced in the United States
(Jim Crow Laws).

of the story

Based on a true story, the movie is about 3 brilliant African-American women named Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson who worked at NASA to send American astronauts into space while racing against Russia. Moreover the movie highlights the difficulties they face while trying to integrate the white society. They had to overcome every sort of discrimination and racism in order to be respected and become what they desired. At the end they succeeded and became “ true American heroes ”.

Main characters

1918-2020

❧ She was a prodigy from early childhood which got her to be attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College by the age of 13. At 18, she enrolled in the college itself, and graduated with highest honors in 1937, earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and French.

Role played by : Taraji P. Henson

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson

❧ In 1953 she began working at NASA’s West Area Computing unit, a group of African American women who manually performed complex mathematical calculations for the program’s engineers.

❧ Became a computer supervisor at NASA in 1968. She calculated and analyzed the flight paths of many spacecraft during her more than three decades with the U.S. space program. Her work helped send astronauts to the Moon. She retired from NASA in 1986.

❧ Johnson received numerous awards and honours for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2015). In 2016 NASA named a building, the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility, after her.

1921-2005

❧ Borned in Hampton, Virginia, she graduated from high school with highest honours, she earned a dual degree in mathematics and physical science at the Hampton Institute in 1942.

Mary Jackson

❧ Started to work at NASA in 1951.

Role played by : Janelle Monáe

❧ In 1958, became the first African American aeronautical female engineer to work at NASA. She worked as an aerospace engineer for some 20 years. Much of her work centred on the airflow around aircraft.

❧ In 1953 Jackson left the West Computers to work for engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki, conducting experiments in a high-speed wind tunnel.

❧ In 1979, she left engineering and took a demotion to become manager of the women’s program at NASA. In that post, she sought to improve the opportunities for all women at the organization. She retired in 1985.

❧ Borned in Kansas City, Missouri, she earned a degree in mathematics from Wilberforce University near Xenia, Ohio, in 1929.

1910-2008

❧ In 1943, she started working for NASA. In spite of the segregation around the West Area Computing Unit, Vaughan was both a respected mathematician and NASA's first African-American manager in 1949.

❧ She served as head of the West Computers until 1958. She and many other West Computers then joined the NASA Analysis and Computation Division, a group made up of men and women of all races. By then, the space program had begun using electronic computers, and Vaughan became an expert at FORTRAN, a computer programming language used for scientific and algebraic applications.

Role played by : Octavia Spencer

Dorothy Vaughan

❧ She retired from NASA in 1971.

Main themes

⁂ Role of women in the space race

HAVE WOMEN WORKED ON THE UNITED STATES' SPACE RACE PROJECT ?
The answer is "YES!" but they were often seen as behind the scenes members. Women were also excluded from the astronauts corps and other highly visible key positions. They were used as “human computers”. The women computers played a vital role in advancing NASA projects. It’s the start of breaking down the barriers for women working in science and engineering.

⁂ Racial segregation/discrimination and obstacles

Everything was separate : toilets, schools, colleges, buses, librairies, neighborhoods, cafeterias and even parks.

Their homes are far because of the segregated areas, 16 miles, 25.7 Km.

NASA was a segregated workspace because the "black computers" were in a separate block called the “West Area” because black people were not allowed to interact with white people. Coloured people faced too many obstacles in their daily life as well as in their careers.

⁂ Racial segregation/discrimination and obstacles

Katherine’s calculations are highlighted in significant scientific papers, but she was forbidden to attend editorial meetings. They mustn’t be cited as author's reports. They weren’t allowed to read classified information. They couldn't be supervisors. They had to change their dress code :

Vivian Mitchell: “Skirts must be worn past the knee. Sweaters are preferred to blouses. No jewellery. A simple pearl necklace is the exception.”