A Tribute to NASA’s Katherine Johnson (RIP): Learn About the Extraordinary Mathematician Who Broke Through America’s Race & Gender Barriers

We don’t call it a tragedy when a renowned per­son dies after the cen­tu­ry mark, espe­cial­ly if that per­son is bril­liant NASA math­e­mati­cian Kather­ine John­son, who passed away yes­ter­day at the ven­er­a­ble age of 101. Her death is a great his­tor­i­cal loss, but by almost any mea­sure we would con­sid­er reach­ing such a fin­ish line a tri­umphant end to an already hero­ic life.

A prodi­gy and pio­neer, John­son joined the all-black “human com­put­ing” sec­tion at NASA’s pre­de­ces­sor, the Nation­al Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee for Aero­nau­tics, in 1953. She would go on to cal­cu­late the launch win­dows and return tra­jec­to­ries for Alan Shepard’s first space­flight, John Glenn’s first trip into orbit, and the Apol­lo Lunar Module’s first return from the Moon.

All this with­out the ben­e­fit of any machine com­put­ing pow­er to speak of and—as Hid­den Fig­ures dra­ma­tizes through the pow­er­ful per­for­mance of Tara­ji P. Hen­son as Johnson—while fac­ing the dual bar­ri­ers of racism and sex­ism her white male boss­es and co-work­ers blithe­ly ignored or delib­er­ate­ly upheld.

John­son and her fel­low “com­put­ers,” with­out whom none of these major mile­stones would have been pos­si­ble, had to fight not only for recog­ni­tion and a seat at the table, but for the basic accom­mo­da­tions we take for grant­ed in every work­place.

Her con­tri­bu­tions didn’t end when the space race was over—her work was crit­i­cal to the Space Shut­tle pro­gram and she even worked on a mis­sion to Mars. But John­son her­self kept things in per­spec­tive, telling Peo­ple mag­a­zine in the inter­view above from 2016, “I’m 98. My great­est accom­plish­ment is stay­ing alive.” Still, she lived to see her­self turned into the hero of that year’s crit­i­cal­ly laud­ed film based on the best­selling book of the same name by Mar­got Lee Shetterly—decades after she com­plet­ed her most ground­break­ing work.

Shetterly’s book, writes his­to­ri­an of tech­nol­o­gy Marie Hicks, casts John­son and her fel­low black women math­e­mati­cians “as pro­tag­o­nists in the grand dra­ma of Amer­i­can tech­no­log­i­cal his­to­ry rather than mere details.” By its very nature, a Hol­ly­wood film adap­ta­tion will leave out impor­tant details and take lib­er­ties with the facts for dra­mat­ic effect and mass appeal. The fea­ture treat­ment moves audi­ences, but it also soothes them with feel-good moments that “keep racism at arm’s length from a nar­ra­tive that, with­out it, would nev­er have exist­ed.”

The point is not that John­son and her col­leagues decid­ed to make racism and sex­ism cen­tral to their sto­ries; they sim­ply want­ed to be rec­og­nized for their con­tri­bu­tions and be giv­en the same access and oppor­tu­ni­ties as their white male col­leagues. But to suc­ceed, they had to work togeth­er instead of com­pet­ing with each oth­er. Despite its sim­pli­fi­ca­tions and gloss­es over Cold War his­to­ry and the depth of prej­u­dice in Amer­i­can soci­ety, Hid­den Fig­ures does some­thing very dif­fer­ent from most biopics, as Atlantic edi­tor Leni­ka Cruz writes, telling “a sto­ry of bril­liance, but not of ego. It’s a sto­ry of strug­gle and willpow­er, but not of indi­vid­ual glo­ry… it looks close­ly at the remark­able per­son in the con­text of a com­mu­ni­ty.”

Kather­ine John­son lived her life as a tremen­dous exam­ple for young women of col­or who excel at math and sci­ence but feel exclud­ed from the estab­lish­ment. On her 98th birth­day, she “want­ed to share a mes­sage to the young women of the world,” says the nar­ra­tor of the 20th Cen­tu­ry Stu­dios video above: “Now it’s your turn.” And, she might have added, “you don’t have to do it alone.” Hear Hid­den Fig­ures author Shet­ter­ly dis­cuss the crit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions of Kather­ine and her extra­or­di­nary “human com­put­er” col­leagues in the inter­view below, and learn more about John­son’s life and lega­cy in the fea­turette at the top and at her NASA biog­ra­phy here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:   

Women Sci­en­tists Launch a Data­base Fea­tur­ing the Work of 9,000 Women Work­ing in the Sci­ences

“The Matil­da Effect”: How Pio­neer­ing Women Sci­en­tists Have Been Denied Recog­ni­tion and Writ­ten Out of Sci­ence His­to­ry

Women’s Hid­den Con­tri­bu­tions to Mod­ern Genet­ics Get Revealed by New Study: No Longer Will They Be Buried in the Foot­notes

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


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  • Lonnie says:

    “By its very nature, a Hol­ly­wood film adap­ta­tion will leave out impor­tant details and take lib­er­ties with the facts for dra­mat­ic effect and mass appeal. The fea­ture treat­ment moves audi­ences, but it also soothes them with feel-good moments that “keep racism at arm’s length from a nar­ra­tive that, with­out it, would nev­er have exist­ed.”

    They also made Kather­ine John­son look way more African/darker than she real­ly was. She looks like a white per­son to me. Thanks Open­cul­ture for strait­en­ing that out!

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