Katherine Johnson, who died Feb. 24, was the inspiration for, “Hidden Figures,” a film about pioneering Black female aerospace workers. According to her biography, Johnson’s greatest contribution to space exploration was calculating the projections that would launch and orbit Apollo’s Lunar Module in outer space. “Katherine Johnson was a hero whose contributions to NASA changed history. She expanded our sense of what it means to be Black, to be a woman, to be a scientist, and to be American,” said Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the book, “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race,” in an exclusive statement to the AFRO. “Even as we mourn her passing, we’ll celebrate her brilliance, and her great humanitarian spirit.
Former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson is seen after President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls, Wikimedia Commons)
Shetterly said she’s “grateful for the way her story has encouraged us to lift up the stories of the other ‘hidden figures’ around us, and also grateful for the Black press, to whom people like Katherine Johnson were never actually hidden.”
More recently, Johnson was awarded the highest American civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.
Shetterly said she’s “grateful for the way her story has encouraged us to lift up the stories of the other ‘hidden figures’ around us, and also grateful for the Black press, to whom people like Katherine Johnson were never actually hidden.”
More recently, Johnson was awarded the highest American civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.