The REAL Katherine Johnson

This week, the New York Times heralded the life and times of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson with an obituary on its front page. 101 and a life well lived, Johnson and her life story had captivated the nation with the 2016 release of the movie Hidden Figures. Why would it not? Very few had heard of her accomplishments before then and her role as the mathematical brains behind the launch of Astronaut John Glenn into space. It seemed unbelievable, but captured the minds of many. The night of the 2017 Academy Awards, Johnson was brought on stage to thunderous applause, but the vestiges of age only allowed her to say a simple “Thanks very much.”  

It was in 2012 that Katherine Johnson and her story were first introduced to The HistoryMakers by Clark Atlanta University physicist Ronald Mickens. He excitedly told us of a photo he had found with a black woman at NASA. With no time to waste and with funding from the National Science Foundation, Mickens traveled with our interview team to Memphis, Tennessee to do her interview. And what an interview it is and it is in our archives in perpetuity.

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Johnson grew up in a family where both her mother and aunts were teachers and her mathematically inclined father fostered her love of mathematics: “I thought he was the smartest person in the world… He was a smart man. And I recall that we had a real tough arithmetics book, and, if I ran into a problem, I'd just read it to him. And he'd tell me the answer” (Katherine Johnson, interviewed by Larry Crowe, February 6, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive ).

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Johnson had indeed showed promise early on when she learned to read at the age of four:  “I was the youngest. Everybody could read, so I learned to read.” Her mother would go looking for her only to find that Johnson had played “hooky” by sneaking off to attend classes at school with her older siblings. So much so that when it was time for her to begin school, Johnson went straight to second grade from kindergarten. This would continue into high school: “Angie Turner King was the math teacher at the high school, and I couldn't wait. My brother was taking geometry. I couldn't wait to get to high school to have geometry under Ms. Turner”.  

Later, when Johnson was admitted into West Virginia State College in 1933, she found those who were more than willing to mentor her natural talents. Math professor Ms. Lacey, approached Johnson in the middle of her freshman year and said, “I'm teaching again, and if you're not in my math class this semester, I'm gonna come get you.” Johnson countered, “So I went into her math class the second semester of my freshman year… I didn't have any math in my freshman year, until I saw Ms. Lacey, and you better believe I joined. She was an excellent teacher.” West Virginia State College’s Dr. William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor who was the third African American in the United States to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics also saw something in his young math wiz: “He said, ‘You'd make a good research mathematician.’ I said, ‘What do they do?’ He said, ‘You'll have to find that out.’ But he said, ‘I'm going to prepare you to be a research mathematician.’ So I took all the courses that were in the catalog. Then he added a couple more. So when I graduated, I had twenty four hours of college math.” After graduating in 1937, Johnson worked as a math teacher, before joining Langley Research Center in June of 1953. There, she was able to use what Professor Claytor had taught her in his class ‘Analytic Geometry of Space,’ “Normally, in geometry, you learn how things move on a plane. But when you get into the third dimension, you're out here in this space, and you have rules. The airplane has six degrees of freedom when it gets out here. So that's another whole science, and it was important that we know how to do that. Well, I was the last one apparently who'd been to college, and I knew all this plain geometry, Analytic Geometry of Space. It was fresh in my mind, so I could do it quicker than they could do it.”  

Plus, Johnson had worked at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), before her time at NASA where she studied rocket technology and space for three years before that: “ We hardly knew ourselves what we were working on. When we first started, we worked for a section called PARD, Pilotless Aircraft Research Department. And that's how I got so deeply involved so early in the Space Program.” Everything at NACA was top secret and no one in her family knew what she was doing:  “They wouldn't have understood it anyway, so it was nothing to discuss.” In fact, her family’s minister during one Sunday’s sermon said “People are now flying into space. If God wanted them to fly into space, he'd have given them wings.”  

At Langley, Johnson would write instructions for the computer in Fortran, then use her Monroe calculator to check its work since her calculations were more reliable than the computers: “We had to compute the launch conditions from here, and then trace it around until it got to the moon, and you had to know how far the moon had moved in that length of time. So it's like you're shooting at rabbits. You don't shoot right at the rabbit. You think where you think the rabbits will be by the time your bullet gets there, right? Well, that's the way it was with this when we launched from earth.”  

Although Johnson was the only African American on the team, she said, “I had no problems…I didn't allow it to get to me. And they didn't either. At one point, they were having a meeting, and they said, ‘Any of you have a black computer?’ Nobody said anything, and so girlfriend said, ‘Are Shy and Katherine still in your office?’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot.’ It just didn't matter. It didn't matter to people at NASA that they were mixed like that, [They] didn't have time.”  

Johnson, when asked about how she would like to be remembered, replied graciously, “Not at all.” Her story of perseverance, courage, and brainpower, however, is hard to forget. It will indeed inspire generations of young people at a time when inspiration is sorely needed. 

The HistoryMakers Launches its WomanMakers Initiative and Advisory Board

On Friday, January 31, 2020, The HistoryMakers Founder and President Julieanna Richardson launched The WomanMakers Initiative and Advisory Board at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice overlooking the East River in New York City . The inaugural luncheon and convening included more than 100 distinguished African American female leaders from the worlds of the arts, business, education, civics, law, science, medicine, the military, entertainment, sports, music, the media, politics religion and fashion and beauty.

Hosted by President of the Ford Foundation Darren Walker , the luncheon was attended by New York City’s First Lady Chirlane McCray , the Honorable Valerie Jarrett , and businesswoman and philanthropist Loida Lewis . Also in attendance were members of The WomanMakers Advisory Committee, including Former CEO of the Aerospace Corporation Dr. Wanda M. Austin;  TV/film producer and publisher Chaz Ebert ; 15 ^th U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders ; philanthropist and interior designer Andrea Frazier , Studio Museum in Harlem music director and curator Thelma Golden ; fashion activist and consultant Bethann Hardison ; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund president Sherrilyn Ifill ; former president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Cheryl Boone Isaacs ; 9 ^th Command Sgt. Maj. of U.S. Army Reserve Michele S. Jones ; President/CEO of the Apollo Theater Jonelle Procope ; Investment banker Carla Harris ; Former Essence magazine editor and CEO of National CARES Mentoring  Susan L. Taylor ; and womanist professors and scholars Smith College’s Paula J. Giddings and Spelman College’s Beverly Guy-Sheftall . 

During the luncheon, Retired Xerox CEO and current VEON CEO Ursula Burns presented The HistoryMakers Founder and President Julieanna Richardson with a $1 million check for its new WomanMakers initiative. Made in honor of her late husband, Lloyd F. Bean , retired Xerox scientist and inventor, Burns’ groundbreaking gift will allow the addition of 180 interviews of leading African American women to The HistoryMakers Collection , which currently has 800 fewer women than men included in its collection. The HistoryMakers Collection is housed permanently in the Library of Congress. 

Burns said, “The HistoryMakers has been at the forefront of recording the history of African Americans for many years. We must continue to support their efforts and help provide the resources to ensure that the legacy of black women is preserved and presented with truth, honor, and integrity.”   

To the group in attendance, Richardson emphasized the crisis and urgency of preserving the Black historical record. “African American history and culture is at a critical crossroads. We are at risk of losing 20th-century documentation within ten to fifteen years. Burns’ million-dollar gift has made it possible for us to move forward with the selection process to secure many significant interviews with black women. We are profoundly grateful to Ursula for her belief and support of us.”

Burns was the first African American woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she rose from a Xerox intern to its CEO. Burns serves as chair of The WomanMakers Advisory Board along with its Honorary Chair Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Chair and President of the National Council of Negro Women. 

The HistoryMakers 5 ^th Annual Higher Education Advisory Board Convening

On Sunday, February 9 ^th and Monday, February 10 ^th , over sixty higher education faculty members from over forty institutions attended The HistoryMakers Higher Education Advisory Board meeting at the University of Virginia’s Darden Sands Family Grounds. Faculty from various departments including African and African American studies, history, English, political science, biological and medical sciences, and the creative arts, convened to discuss and collaborate on the ways The HistoryMakers Digital Archive has been, and can be used on college campuses. On Sunday evening, Michael Mason of the University of Virginia, Evelyn Brooks-Higginbotham of Harvard University, and Alice Randall of Vanderbilt University helped kickoff the convening through their demonstrations on successful use of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive with students. On Monday, the board also heard from six 2019 Digital Archive Fellows on ways in which they have implemented The HistoryMakers Digital Archive content into their personal endeavors. Geoffrey Clarke of Brandies University and Amy Nguyen of Rutgers University shared their research on “Two Eras of Black Banking,” Angela Tate of Northwestern University presented her project “Race, Citizenship & Aesthetics of Black Womanhood in the Global Freedom Struggle, 1920-1994,” Leah Glenn and Steve Prince of the College of William & Mary displayed and discussed their creative piece “Nine: Redressing American Education,” and Kinohi Nishikawa of Princeton University showed his project on “What is Black Design?”  

The DEADLINE is APPROACHING – Apply for The HistoryMakers’ second round of student and faculty fellowships by March 2, 2020 ! 

The HistoryMakers is inviting applications for one of three sets of fellowships – Academic Research , Digital Humanities , and Creative Study – for the Summer of 2020.  Winning applicants will work on projects over April - September 2020 , and finished products will be featured on The HistoryMakers website and also compete for inclusion in The HistoryMakers 20 ^th Anniversary Celebration at the Library of Congress (November 6-7, 2020)!

Established with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in its inaugural year in 2019, The HistoryMakers Fellowship Awards received widespread interest from faculty and scholars, with a broad range of subjects and an impressive level of scholarship. 

We are excited to receive this year’s proposals for each of our three sets of fellowships!

For Academic Research , s ubmit your application online here .

For Digital Humanities , submit your application online here .

 

For Creative Arts , submit your application online here .

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Please direct questions about The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to: digitalarchive@thehistorymakers.org