Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughn were unknown to me until I read the book, Hidden Figures, in 2017. While there were plenty of references to the space race in my junior and senior high school history and current events classes, I grew up with the assumption there were no Black people involved. But that didn’t stop me from daydreaming about being an astronaut. I was 12 when John Glenn orbited the earth and it stoked my curiosity about space travel. I honestly believed that the science fiction I binged would eventually come to pass.
The book, and the movie that followed, made me realize that I stand on the shoulders on those women. A generation behind them, I benefited from the trails they blazed but experienced the same racism and sexism still so prevalent in technology education and work environments.
Wanting to be an astronaut, my first career choice was aerospace engineer. The prestigious engineering schools I considered, Cal Tech, MIT, and Harvey Mudd, did not accept women in 1967. The brother of a best friend was an aerospace engineering major at Northrop Institute of Technology, so that was where I went. At the same time, I was selected for an IBM summer internship that was an “equal opportunity program”, as they were called then. Given the role IBM played in this piece of history, they must have recognized an opportunity to seize the civil rights moment, regardless of the intention.
That first summer, IBM started the intern cohort, all of us top students (of color) plucked out of high schools in low-income communities, with the boring basics. Wiring punch card reader/sorters. Using code sheets and punch card machines. COBOL and RPG. Job control language (JCL) for the front and back of the program deck. All of us were disappointed that what we were being taught had no use for our engineering pursuits. We drew straws to voice our concern to the program director, and I was one the two to request the meeting. It was a scary experience and we were turned away with a take it or leave it choice. But apparently, we were heard. Next summer we were all assigned to branches supporting technology customers. I was on the McDonnel Douglas account team, writing Assembler programs for IBM System 7 computers used by McDonnel in production control.
Meanwhile, I was in my second year at Northrop, 1970. I knew if I wanted to get into space, I had to join the Air Force. I met with a recruiter about the ROTC. It was all bad news and insult. He told me only combat-trained pilots were considered for NASA. Women Air Force pilots only flew cargo planes. “But most women who start flight training don’t finish. You’ll be married and starting a family before you finish your active duty.” I don’t remember exactly what I said to him, but it wasn’t much as I stood up and walked out. The next semester I change my major to Applied Mathematics/Computer Science.
Thus began my journey to tech. Just one generation behind Jackson, Johnson, and Vaughn, it was unbeknownst to me the influence their history had on mine and the similarities in our experiences. And it would be the length of two more generations before I would know that.
I’m in deep gratitude for Margot Lee Shetterly and her research that became the book and inspired the movie. For documenting Black Women’s History, with hopes more women of all colors can appreciate, honor, and its impact on our lives.
