Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

260 “We always thought it was so cool”: Wanda Jackson, telephone interview, February 15, 2016.

260 “The Peninsula recently lost a woman of courage”: Gloria Champine, “Mary Jackson,” NASA website, February 2005, http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/4/4a/MaryJackson.pdf.

261 It was “deadly”: Fries, NASA Engineers in the Age of Apollo, loc. 1741.

261 knocked off the board by a black man: Christine Darden, The History Makers.

261 “Why is it that men get placed into engineering groups”: Darden interview.

261 “Well, nobody’s ever complained”: Ibid.

261 had been an “excellent mathematician”: John Becker, personal interview, August 10, 2014; Golemba, “Human Computers,” 4.

262 self-described “wing man”: “David Earl Fetterman Jr.,” Daily Press, March 5, 2003.

262 It took three years of work: Christine M. Darden, “Minimization of Sonic-Boom Parameters in Real and Isothermal Atmospheres,” Langley Research Center, 1975.

262 sixty technical publications and presentations: Warren, Black Women Scientists in the United States, 78.

262 seven men and one woman: Christine Darden, personal interview, February 12, 2012; Christine Darden, “Growing Up in the South During Brown v. Board,” Old Dominion University Commencement Address, December 15, 2012, http://justiceunbound.org/carousel/growing-up-in-the-south-during-brown-v-board/.

262 “juggling the duties of Girl Scout mom”: Warren, Black Women Scientists in the United States, 77.

263 Gloria Champine admired Christine Darden’s intelligence: Gloria Champine, personal interview, July 23, 2014.

263 “It involved a promotion”: Hammond interview, April 4, 2014.

264 was given to Roger Butler: Cortright, “Reorganization of the Langley Research Center.”

264 Sara Bullock, the East Computer: Ibid.

264 In 1971, there were still no female: Ibid.

264 Only reluctantly did she agree: Hammond interview, April 3, 2014.





INDEX

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Abernathy, Ralph, 168, 202, 240–241

ACD. SeeAnalysis and Computation Division aerodynamics blunt object reentry, 163, 188

laminar flow airfoils, 55, 111

NACA crash course, 54–55

Aerospace Mechanics Division, 182

Azimuth Angle report, 192, 211, 220

Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (OH), 41, 84

aircraft name designations, 57

aircraft production boost, 3, 41

Aldrin, Buzz, 245

Allen, Harvey, 163, 188

Almond, J. Lindsay, 168, 184

Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, 40, 94, 105, 120, 133, 186, 232, 235–239, 312

Alston, Daisy (West Computer), 171, 204

Alston v. Norfolk (1940), 70

“America Is for Everybody” brochure, 227–228

“American Century,” 137, 299

Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (CA), 41, 82, 84

Analysis and Computation Division (ACD) black employees, 241

Dorothy Vaughan, 204–206, 218–219

Anderson, Marian, 68, 228

anti-Semitism, 102

Area Rule, 110–111

Armstrong, Neil, 244, 245

astronauts

civil rights support, 203, 309

“dummy” orbital flight, 219, 222

first American into space, 208–209

first American orbital flight, 209, 213–217, 223–224

first full day in space, 215

first human to orbit, 208, 209

heart rate tracking, 221

no blacks, 225, 241

Project Mercury selection, 188–189

See also specific astronauts Atlas rocket, 189, 208, 213–214, 217–218, 221, 223

atomic war, 98, 151–152, 301

Azimuth Angle report, 192, 211, 220

B for bombers, 57

B-29 Superfortress, 57, 59, 99

Baez, Joan, 228

Baker, Josephine, 103

Bassette, Ida (West Computer), 81

Bassette, Pearl (West Computer), 16, 39, 42, 171, 204

Bates, Daisy, 228, 312

bathrooms segregated, xv, 48

Colored Girls sign, 8, 43, 44

East Side assignment, 108–109

opting out, 129, 146–147, 179

Soviet influence, 169–170

Baumgartner Carl, Ann, 55

Bay Shore Beach (Hampton, VA), 78, 93, 118

Beck, Harold, 210

Becker, John, 42, 82, 114–115, 163–164, 261

Bell, Lawrence, 99–100

Bell Telephone Laboratories, 137–138

Bell X–1 plane, 85, 99–100

Bethune, Mary McLeod, 66, 229

Biggins, Virginia, xvi, 180

Bird, John D. “Jaybird,” 42, 113–114, 180, 218

black Americans

African feet ashore, 228, 311

after World War II, 140

American dilemma, 109, 295

Double V, 35–36

engineers, xiv, 113–114, 145–147, 230

first mathematics doctorates, 13, 24

Hampton Institute president, 97, 203

international view, 103–104, 150, 170

Log Cabin Beach, 78–79

“masked” around whites, 109

Moon shot cost, 240–241

nameless or renowned, 250, 251

NASA employees, xiv, 217–219, 227–228, 241–242

National Technical Association, 197

soap box derby winner, 200

top echelon via washerwomen, 12, 235–236

treatment of vs. colonialism, 103–104

women with college degrees, 40

women’s average wage, 79

See also civil rights movement; desegregation; segregation black newspapers Ace of Space John Glenn, 224

Brown v. Board of Education, 141

freedom fighting, 34–36

Goble family, 185–186

Hillside Inn advertisements, 238, 313

Katherine Johnson celebrity, 225, 249

school closings over integration, 169, 184

Sputnik and education, 152

Tuskegee airmen, 51–52

Vaughan family, 10

war job advertisements, 15

Boaz, Aurelia (West Computer), 105

Brown, Lawrence, 146, 166

Brown, Yvette (West Computer), 39

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), 135, 140–141, 153–154, 157, 304

Virginia versus, 168–169, 184–186, 203–204, 304, 309

Bullock, Sara (East Computer), 138, 205, 264

Burton, Mary Shep (math aide), 210

bus segregation

boycott of city buses, 168, 202

Colored waiting room, 22

entering and exiting, 30, 36

illegal per Supreme Court, 44–45

punishing violators, 31

Virginia treatment of blacks, 69–70

Butler, Melvin

applicant sources, 5

courting James Williams, 113

Negro female candidates, 6–8

permanent appointments, 81

recruit installation, 1–2, 4

Butler, Roger, 264

Butler, Sherwood, 2, 7

Butts, William Davis, 142

Byrd, Harry

Brown v. Board of Education and, 141, 168–169, 170, 184–185

communist epithet, 66, 103, 170

Byrdsong, Thomas, 145–147, 166, 218, 269

C for cargo planes, 57

Cadettes, 82, 289

cafeteria segregated

Colored Computers sign, 43–45, 48

opting out, 130, 146–147

Soviet influence, 169–170

Camp Pickett laundry plant, 9–10, 11, 17

Cape Canaveral (FL)

filming activities, 217

launch weather, 215

mule train protest, 240–241

Project Mercury, 206

Cape Kennedy (FL), 240–241

Carl, Ann Baumgartner, 55

Carpenter, Scott, 188, 214

Cascade Aerodynamics West Computers, 87

Chaffee, Roger, 233

Chambers, Lenoir, 184, 309

Champine, Gloria, 257–261

Cherry, Mary, 16

Civil Rights Act (1964), 240

civil rights movement

astronaut support, 203, 309

Autherine Lucy, 152

bus segregation, 44–45, 168, 202

Civil Rights Act, 240

cost of Moon shot versus, 240–241, 251–252

economic rights and, 6, 103. See also Randolph, A. Philip Housing Rights Act, 241

Langley progress, 167–168

Lieutenant Uhura, 242–243

March on Washington, 228–229, 312

Martin Luther King Jr., 6, 168, 202, 228, 229, 240, 243

Mary McLeod Bethune, 66, 229

Nina Simone, 156

Poor People’s Campaign, 240–241

Ralph Abernathy, 168, 202, 240–241

sit-ins, 201–202

teacher salaries, 63, 70, 75

Vernon Johns, 33–34, 140

Voting Rights Act, 240

Woolworth’s lunch counter, 201

See also NAACP

civil service

advocate Ruth Bates Harris, xiii

loyalty forms of Truman, 102

merit system reforms, 32–33

Negro applicants, 6–7

oath of office, 1, 37, 274

photos on applications, 6–7, 33, 94

post office job bulletins, 15

Claytor, William Waldron Schieffelin, 24, 73–74

Cohen, Doris

author at NACA, xvii, 85, 290

R. T. Jones partner, 85, 88, 290

Cold War

“Communist” epithet, 66, 101, 102, 103, 170

Cuba, 207, 222

education and, 142, 158

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