Gaining incredible spotlight, if you’re up-to-date on the reading, Hidden Figures is one of those upcoming movies that speak of an untold story from history about the great and prominent achievements that were found in making an auspicious change in the lifestyle of many. Not to my surprise, Hidden Figures is also an upcoming book that tells a remarkable story of a group of female scientists who were significantly behind the biggest and most influential advances in aeronautics, in the 1940s era.
What this movie tells is the proud story of a solid team of African-American women who aid NASA by providing them with crucial mathematical data in the context of making a startling change for so many black women who enjoyed their long careers within the community. According to a recent article published in The Guardian, it was pointed out in the book that just 2% of black women got a university degree and more than half became teachers. And only a few broke down their “chosen” paths to join NASA to become serious mathematicians.
According to the Hidden Figures website, hundreds of women worked as “human computers” for the NACA, former NASA, from the 1930s through the 1980s. This website encourages The Human-Computer Project that strives and has accomplished great to recover hundreds of names and legacy for all female scientists, data analysts, mathematicians, and engineers who worked at NASA during that time. It is a solid effort to bring to light what has been forgotten, or not given enough importance today.
Hidden Figures highlights the lives of those black women who paved the way, being steadfast and true to the end, during one of the biggest advances in aeronautics, and other influential moments that made the 20th century what it stands for today. Katherine Johnson, is an African-American physicist, space scientist, and mathematician, born in 1918. She’s been a part of many major space programs that also took a giant leap during the moon landing, a fact that remains unknown, until now. She wasn’t alone. There was a proud team of all-female and all-black scientists behind every major space program during that time. That’s what Hidden Figures is built to portray so contemptuously and with such single-hearted commitment.
And that’s why I am looking forward to this movie releasing in 2017. I will, most probably, read the book first, like I always do, but I might hold off a bit more just to read it at the right time when this movie releases so the spirit instilled in their story and their hard work is still alive when I sit with cheese and salted popcorn with a Red Bull can, to watch it passionately in the cinema.
I didn’t choose to write about this movie, specifically, because it speaks of the unforgotten and untold story of black NASA women. I chose this movie because this is the perfect kind of movie that the world must watch right now. It’s empowering and it keeps us reminded of the marvels that have happened in the past that have shaped our present and future. Things are rapidly transforming from one generation to the next, but what stays are such brilliant biographical films about strong, intelligent, and beautiful people in the world. It inspires us to do more, be more, and give back more. Because what’s knowledge when it’s not passed on to others?
Coming from a time when African American women were barred from studying in colleges, they were unable to be literate, forget about being educated. They were kept from being confident enough to tell their own story. And this destitution had been passed on from generation to generation until women like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and countless more who fought for their rights and place in the world. These were the women who never stopped striving, to find a way to face their own lifestyle choices in a way that it meant to go against whatever bias came their way. How can such a movie that reflects such brilliant principles not be interesting and inspiring for anyone?
Such movies boast of great sense and capability, at work and in a person’s personal life. When applied to making a change, being a woman who’s looked at as something meant to fulfill an already-decided duty, this untold and true story is heartening and conversable for all. That’s why I chose to write about Hidden Figures.