Katherine Johnson has truly lived an extraordinary life and she should be celebrated for years to come for her mathematical and scientific achievements. She was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Her numerical genius was discovered at a young age. By age ten she was a high school freshman, and she graduated from high school at fourteen, and college at eighteen. This was truly an incredible for feat for a young African-American woman at a time where African-Americans were rarely educated beyond eighth grade and there were few opportunities for black women. In fact in 1938, she was the first woman to desegregate West Virginia’s state college. However, it wasn’t until 1953 that she was able to show off her amazing abilities.
NACA, NASA’s predecessor, hired women to be “computers” which meant they had the painstaking task of calculating test results. This was because “The women were meticulous and accurate… and they didn’t have to pay them very much,” according to a NASA historian. During World War II, and during the Space Race there was a greater need for computers, so African-American women were hired. However, they were greatly discriminated against. They were paid less, were ineligible for promotions, had to retake college courses and had separate dining and bathroom facilities on the west side of the Langley Research Center’s Guidance and Navigation Department in Virginia.
Despite all of the prejudice and obstacles she faced, Johnson excelled and her mathematical skills were part of NASA’s greatest accomplishments. Johnson calculated the trajectory from lift-off to splashdown for Alan Shepard, the first man in space, in 1961. Also, incredibly in 1962, John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, personally asked for Johnson to double check the calculations from the electronic computers.
After living such an inspirational life Johnson is finally getting the recognition she so rightfully deserves. In 2015, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama which is the highest civilian honor. In 2016, Hidden Figures, a fantastic girl-power movie (that everyone needs to go watch immediately!) depicting the lives of Katherine Johnson as well as two others incredible black human computers, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, was released to critical acclaim.
Very recently, Katherine Johnson had a massive $23 million, NASA center dedicated to her. The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility was opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony where Johnson herself was present. From once having to run across campus to use the segregated bathroom to having a center named after her, Johnson certainly has led an inspirational and tremendously ground-breaking life.