War and the movement for gender e. Quality. And admiration of history i was curious about the state september 8. What happened on this date . September 8 the surveyor site launched. Margo lee launches her book Hidden Figures into the literary world. [applause] she graduated from the university of virginia with a degree in finance. A journalist from independent researcher, entrepreneur and cocreator of the english monthly magazine with her husband margo is the daughter of one of the first black male engineers so she grew up knowing many of the figures. Of the computer project and be Foundation Fellow and recipient of the Virginia Foundation of the humanities grant for her research. She lives in charlottesville virginia. Virginia woolf once said anonymous and history was usually a woman. Let me say that again. Anonymous in history was usually a woman. Tonight these brilliant women are anonymous no more thanks to her book Hidden Figures. May the names of Catherine Johnson, mary jackson, doctor christine and the other women that contributed to the space race and changed the course of history finally received their due. A few housekeeping notes i want to remind everyone that her talk is going to be here and take place atakesplace at the museums in the great hall. Cspan asked me to say because they are filming they asked for no flash photography so if you u want to take a picture just turn your flash off and pleas pleasee numbered to silence or phones. You. Tonight margo is doing just that, making history. It is our pleasure and honor to introduce a margo lee. My home church where i grew up and i was sitting in a pew with my parents robert and margaret lee who are here and my husband aaron shetterly and we were interviewing a former sunday schoolteacher of mine about her career as a mathematician at the Langley Research center. None of us had an idea at the time that first interview would turn into all of this, this Hidden Figures the book, my first book and a movie. As exciting as it has been to receive that level of enthusiasm for this endeavor the most gratifying thing to me about these last few years has been learning about my hometown. There was so much that i didnt know and so much that i didnt know about the people who live here and the people who i knew growing up here. So writing this book for me has been that way of telling my story and tracing my past through the lives of these groundbreaking women. This is my history. This is your history. This history belongs to all of us. The thrilling part the mundane parts, the hard parts in the painful parts. All of this has made us who we are today. And so the fact that we are here in this church across from the Hampton History Museum is so close to Hampton University to the Langley Research center to portman road the grand contraband camp which is the first lack settlement of United States. It simply couldnt be a more fitting venue. Hidden figures follows the lives of four africanamerican women, Dorothy Vaughan mary Jackson Katherine johnson and Christine Darden who is here. [applause] and i am so pleased also to let you know that many of the family members of Dorothy Vaughan and mary jackson and i believe mrs. Johnson are here as well as gloria who is a part of my book and many other women who worked with them and men who worked with them at the Langley Research center so thank you so much for coming and if you see them in the crowd tonight definitely i think i see sharon stack back there. I am so thrilled that these women who actually lived the history so i could write it are here. So, so many of us gathered here. We knew these women and they we were raised by them or lived with them or worship with them or socialize with them or taught by them or worked with them. Im sure you will agree with me when we say we have learned a tremendous amount from them. So many lessons from these women and their lives. I have a list that could fill another book with things i have learned from researching their lives but one the most timely i think and the one that i would like to emphasize tonight is the following. Never allow fear to get the best of curiosity and maturation. Sitting here is an inherently risky endeavor. Takes a powerful imagination to believe it is possible to land humans on the moon and to bring them back safely. That it venture one of humanitys greatest had its roots right here in Hampton Virginia. That a black woman could do some of the calculations to get them there given the times that might have taken even more imagination to come to fruition but that happened as well as we know from the acclaims that Katherine Johnson has received from the work she did on the mercury and Apollo Mission but mostly on john glenns and groundbreaking orbital flight in 1962. People from around the United States indeed from around the world came to work at langley. These women worked alongside people of all backgrounds and they achieved together things that even today 47 years later would have to stop and marvel. Its incredible what is possible when you take the best minds among us and allow their imaginations to run free. The narrative of Hidden Figures is told through the eyes of these four africanamerican women whose ultimate mission was to use the story of their lives to tell a series of other stories. Of world war ii and how it transformed our city and our society, the anxious days of the cold war, of the hope and conflicts of the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Strides that all women have made legally, socially and economically over the 20th century. Fords of black women worked at langley and others around the country. There are so many names eunice smith harbor Holly Christine ritchie ida basset marion mann annie easley catherine trial. There were so many of them more than i could ever mention the book but those women were part of a larger cohort of women like virginia hekker marjory Hannah Dorothy lee sharon staff Sarah Bullock mary shephardson barbara whitesell. These women just like were valedictorians. They were in math and science competition winners. They were very smart women who until they came to langley thought they would put their their degrees to work in the classroom. They received a fraction of the credit that they deserved it in the 1970s and 1980s black women like mary jackson and Katherine Johnson work is to create opportunities for talented women of all backgrounds. Through an organization that i started called the human computer project im trying to recover the names of all of the women who worked as computer mathematicians and visionaries during the early days of the naca and nasa just not just at langley or all of the nasa and naca installations. I would like to encourage you to contact my form on the web site margot lee shetterly. Com. I have been in touch with the museums and if you know the names of women who were your grandmothers or mothers, aunts colleagues friends ladies that you knew from church, your neighbors, please let me know because i really would like to have all of their names because none of these women are in the shadows anymore. Now all of these stories have the beginning, a middle and an aunt. I ardini the end. And the result of this wonderful history that happened here in Hampton Virginia. My father is retired scientist. My mother retired Hampton University english professor. Im the proud product of integrated hampton city schools and they graduated from the university of virginia which now takes men and women from all backgrounds. That first meeting six years ago led me to ask the question how did this all begin . How did she and Katherine Johnson and the many women i knew from my childhood end up at nasa . Many people know the story of the Space Program which was gaining momentum at the same time that a young preacher from atlanta named Martin Luther king jr. Was taking center stage and then becoming known as the Civil Rights Movement. Fewer people know that well before the start of the Space Program hampton was americas first center for Aeronautical Research and development. Few people know that f4 dr. King a civil rights leader named a. Phillip randolph led the campaign to ban discrimination in the Civil Service as the Defense Industry against africanamericans and many of the people who have been left out of the new jobs are coming about as the result of world war ii. In may of 1943 almost two years after Franklin Roosevelt executive order desegregating the Civil Service five black women started jobs working as mathematicians at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory what i would like to do right now is read from the first chapter of my look Hidden Figures. This is how the story begins. As im reading remember it all happened here in Hampton Virginia. Chapter 1 a door opens. Melvin butler the Personnel Officer at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory had a problem the scope and nature of which was made plain in a may 1943 telegram as Civil Service chief of fields operation. This establishment has an urgent need for approximately 100 junior physicists and mathematicians, 100 assistant 75 miner Laboratory Practices 125 trainees 30 stenographers and typists. Every morning at 7 00 a. M. The bowtie butler and his staff sprang to life dispatching the wagon to the local rail depot to the bus station and the Ferry Terminal to collect. So many women each day more women who had made their way to the virginia coast. The shuttle conveyed the recruits to the Drug Laboratory Service Building on the campus at langley field. Upstairs butlers staff was them through the first station. Photos and the oath of office that i will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic so help me god. The newly minted Civil Servants stand up to take their places in one of the Research Facilities buildings each already no sooner had the laboratories had appeared care meant to set the final parks in the building that his brother and melvin set about filling with new employees. Closets and hallways workshops status make shift offices. Someone came up with the bright idea putting two desks headtohead and a new piece of furniture with a jump seat. In the four years since hitlers troops overran poland americas interest in the european war and allconsuming conflict with the laboratories complement of 500 audits at the close of the decades was on its way to 1500 yet the great war machine swallowed them whole and remained hungry for more. The offices of the Administration Building looked out onto the crescent shaped airfield. Only civilian close people headed to the laboratory the oldest of the National Advisory committee for aeronautics naca distinguished brick building. The two installations had grown up together. The airbase devoted to the development of military airpower capability the laboratory a civilian Agency Charged with advancing the Scientific Understanding of the aeronautics and disseminating findings to the military and private industry. Since the beginning since beginning the army had allowed the laboratory to operate on the campus of the airfield to the close relationship with the armys fire served as a constant reminder to the engineers that every experiment they conducted had realworld implications. The double hangar, two, 110foot long building standing sidebyside had been covered in camouflage tape in 1942 to deceive the enemy eyes. Its shady and cavernous interior sheltering the machines from the elements. Men and jumpsuits moves moved and trucks and jeeps from plane to plane stopping to hover this one of the unlike pollinating insects checking them filling up with gas replacing parts examining them becoming one with him and taking off. The music of airplane engines and propellers ciphering through the movement of takeoff flight and landings played from before sunrise until dusk. Each machine unique to its minders as a babys cry to its mother. Beneath the tenderness of the ancient played the laboratories wind tunnel churning their ondemand hurricane onto the plane. Plane parts model planes. Just two years prior to the storm clouds gathering president roosevelt challenged the ramp up of airplanes to 50,000 per year. It seemed an Impossible Task for an industry that as recently as 1938 had only provided the Army Air Corps with 90 planes. Now americas aircraft industry was a production miracle easily surpassing roosevelt by more than half. It had become the largest industry in the world, the most productive the most sophisticated of producing the chairman by more than three times and the japanese by nearly five. The facts were clear to all, the final conquest would come from this. For the flag boys in the air corps airplanes were transporting troops and supplies to combat zones for pursuing enemies skyhigh launching pads for ship sinking bombs. They review their vehicles in a preflight checkup before climbing in the mechanics rolled up their sleeves and sharpened their eyes. An improperly locked shoulder harness a faulty fuel tank light anyone of these could cost lives. But even before the plane responded to his pilot addresses nature its very dna from the shape of its wings to the cowing of its engines had been manipulated, refined massage deconstructed and recombined by the engineers next door. Long before americas aircraft manufactures put one of their flying machines into production they spent it working prototype to langley to be design tested and approved. Nearly every highperformance aircraft model and the United States made its way to Hampton Virginia. The engineers park the planes in the wind tunnels making note of air disturbing services load root fuselages uneven wing geometry as there is old Family Doctors and examined every aspect of the plane taking careful note. Naca test pilots sometimes took an engineer riding shotgun. Did her role unexpectedly . It stall . Was hard to maneuver . The engineers subjected the airplane to capturing and analyzing the numbers recommending improvement. Some slight other significant. Even small improvements in efficiency multiplied over millions of pilot miles added up to a difference that could tip the longterm and allies favor. Victory jrue airpower henry reed engineering charge the Langley Laboratory had been placed petitioner was reminder of the importance of airplane to the wars outcome. Victory through airpower they report repeated to each other minding each decimal point poring over questions and pressure differentiation charts until their eyes type in the battle of research victory would be theirs unless of course Melvin Butler failed bring fresh minds. They engines were one thing in each engineer required to support. Craftsmen to build the airplane models mechanics to maintain that donald and number crunchers to process the numerical issued from the research. Lift and drag friction and flow. With what was the plane but a bundle of physics . Physics of course meant math and math meant mathematicians and in the middle of the last decade mathematicians were women. Langleys first female computing pool started in 1935 the cost and uproar at the minute the laboratory but how can a female mind process something so rigorous and precise as math . [laughter] the very idea investing 500 on calculating show that it could be used by a girl. But the girls had been good, very good better computing in fact than many of the engineers the men begrudgingly admitted. Until the handful of girls winning the title of mathematician of professional the fact that most computers were designated as lower paid subrepression of provided a boost to the laboratorys bottom line. In 1943 the girls were harder to come by. Virginia tech are langley said computer brand laps up and down the east coast searching for coeds with even a modicum of analytical or mechanical skills hoping for matriculating College Students to fill the hundreds of open positions for computer scientific aids Models Laboratory systems and even mathematicians. She constricted what seemed like entire classes of math logic from her North Carolina alma mater the Greensboro College for women and went to virginia schools like sweet breyer and lynchburg and state teachers Callers College in farmville. Melvin butler leaned on the u. S. Civil Service Commission and the war manpower commission. He panned ads for the local newspaper the daily press. Reduce her household duties. Women who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do jobs previously filled by men should call the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Personnel department for publishing employee newsletter. Are there members of your family or others you know who would like to play a part in getting supremacy of the inner . Have you friends of either sex who would like to do important work towards winning and shortening the war . With men being absorbed into the military services with women already and command by eager employers to labor markets were exiles did as there were workers. A bright spot presented itself is another mans problem. A. Philip randolph ahead of the largest black labor union in the country demanded that roosevelt opened lucrative jobs black africans. Threatening in 1941 to bring 100,000 to the National Capitol in protest. Who the hell is this guy randolph the president s aid. Roosevelt blinked. A tall courtly black man with a stare of an eagle a. Philip randolph of Eleanor Roosevelt headed the 35,000 strong supporters waited on segregated trains with prejudice and humiliation from whites. Nevertheless they provided economic stability and social standing to believing civil rights were inextricably linked to economic rights randolph phot tirelessly for the rights of americans to participate in the america they helped build. Randolph would address the multitudes at another march on washington and concede this stage too young and charismatic minister from atlanta named Martin Luther king jr. Later generations would have the black Freedom Movement but in 1941 as the United States oriented every aspect of the society toward war for the second time in less than 30 years it was randolphs longterm mission and the specter of the margin never happened that open the door that closed like a bank vault since the end of reconstruction. With twostroke 710 executive order 8802 ordering the desegregation of the Defense Industry and executive order 9346 creating the fair Employment Tax Committee to monitor the National Project of economic inclusion was about prime the pump for a new to come into this tight production process. Newly nearly two years after ramdass 19 for a win showdown is the laboratorys personnel reached the Civil Service applicants of qualified black female candidates began filtering into the langley Service Building presenting themselves for consideration by the laboratorys personnel staff. No photo advice as to the applicants. That requirement instituted under the administration of Woodrow Wilson was struck down as the rosabell the administration tried to dismantle discrimination in hiring practices. The applicants alma mater West Virginia state university, how word, arkansas agricultural mechanical Hampton Institute just across town all black schools but nothing indicated anything less than fitness for the job. If anything more experience than white women applicants after many years of teaching experience on top of math and science degrees. They would need a separate stage Melvin Butler knew and then they would have to have an experience grow quite obviously someone who is in the position due to the sensitivity of the u. S. Sensitivity of the assignment. The warehouse building on the west side of the Laboratory Part of campus that was more wilderness than anything resembling a workplace would be just the thing. They had argued move there as well as some of the employees of personal department had with around a plot pressure to test the airplanes queued up at the hangar engineers would welcome the additional hands. So many of the engineers were northerners relatively accosted on the racial issue at devout when it came to mathematics. He required no imagination on his part to guess was some as fellow virginians might think that the idea of integrating negro women into langley offices to come here as the virginia called the newcomers to the state and their strange ways. Paradise been negro employees janitors cafeteria workers mechanics groundskeepers but opening the door to professional peers for something new. Butler proceeded with discretion. No big announcement in the daily press no fanfare but he also proceeded with direction nothing to herald the arrival of the negro women to the laboratory but nothing to derail their arrival either. Maybe Melvin Butler was progressive for his time and place or maybe it was just a functionary carrying out his duties. Maybe he was both. State law in virginia customs kept him from charlie describes the action but perhaps the segregated office was just the cover he needed to get the black women in the door a at trojan horse of segregation opening the door to immigration. Whatever his personal feelings on race one thing was clear butler was the langley man through and through loyal to the laboratory, to its mission to his worldview and took charge during the war. By nature he and the rest of the naca were all about practical solutions. So too was a Philip Randolph the leaders in fatigue of all activism unrelenting pressure and superior organizing skills laid the foundation for what in the 1960s would come to be known as the Civil Rights Movement did there was no way that randolph or the men of the laboratory or anyone else that the hiring of a group of black female mathematicians at the langley Aeronautical Laboratory would still shrouded from view where the aeronautical man that would crush the notion that sound flight was a physical impossibility. Electronic calculating what amplifies the power of science and technology to unthinkable dimensions. No one anticipated that millions of wartime women would refuse to leave the American Workplace and forever changed the meaning of womens work or that american negroes could persist in their demand for full access to the founding ideals of their country and not be moved. The black female mathematicians who walks into langley in 1943 defined themselves as the intersection of the great transformation. Their sharp minds and ambitions into bidding to what the United States would consider one of its greatest victories. But in 1943 america existed an urgent president responding to the needs of the here and now. Butler took the next step making it known to add another item to the seemingly endless requisition list a metal bearing the words girls. [applause] that is how the story begins. I wont tell you everything about the story except that the americans finally did get to the moon. [laughter] but everything that happens in between polled believe you will enjoy reading that and so i thought it might be interesting to im sorry if you could raise your hands and then the microphone will come to use a we can hear you. The thing about the Civil Service is a paid dependent on your grades so if you were hired as a gf for then you would get paid what the others did. The issue was getting hired into that level so it wasnt always the case that thereve black women were hired at the same level so there were actually in the very beginning some women such as Dorothy Vaughan who was hired at a t1 level which is the equivalent of many male engineers so there were definitely exceptions but in general most of the women black, white or otherwise were hired as sub professionals and less than men. Margo im so fascinated by your research and your productivity. I had a question about the book we could not fail by moss and paul. You are able to use that to . How George Carruthers with all the sophisticated inventions of the camera that allowed us to go to the men and im just so proud of you. Thank you. There is a book that came out last year that was called we could not fail and it tells the story of many of the africanamerican engineers who worked at the marshall state senator. Theres also a book that came out called rise of the rocket girls which tells the story of a group of women who worked at the jet Propulsion Laboratory which is now part of nasa out in pasadena california during world war ii. So i think its really exciting that a lot of these stories are people who have worked in the Space Program and worked in aeronautics for a very long time are starting to come to life right now. Theres a section of the book that tells that story. Hi margo. I too am very proud that but when you are writing a book or researching at what was the one if you can think of it most surprising anecdote that you came across. Too there were so many. There were just so many. For example there was a code war tied to langley and engineer who had worked at langley and i think he left in 1946 to go to the games let the carpet he was connected to the roosevelts by case. The rosenbergs were executed for spying but the russians and the engineer who worked here at langley was actually put on trial. He was convicted of perjury but the government charged him with passing secrets to the russians. The research on that was fascinating because the ai came to hampton and they knocked on doors. They were investigating situations and people were communists so that was another very surprising link that Hampton Virginia had to this great global struggle between the United States and the russians. What is the riskiest thing you have done parallel to that . Would you be brave enough to go into space and would you be an astronaut if you didnt have to do your homework and you could just go based on all the math thats been done before . The question was what i want to go into space. [laughter] i kind of really liked the earth. Im not sure that i would. [laughter] although i must say i really do think the work that nasa does and is continuing to do is really important that i think its interesting and varied siding there right now nasa is taking up the mantle and pushing forward to go to mars. I think thats really exciting to one of the other things that they are resurrecting from the work that was pioneered by Christine Darden are supersonic transport planes. Thats happening right here at langley so i might not be the first passenger for mars one but you know i think the fact that work is continuing is very important and very very exciting. How did you go from finishing the book to the movie plex how did that happen . Well, that is a very interesting question. They can about this project the thing about this project from the beginning people had responded very strongly which completely has to do with the strength of the women of all of the women and the fact that there were so many women in this was not a story of one woman or even five limit that there were scores of black women and the total group of women probably from the 1930s to the 1980s was more than a thousand. I think that the idea that this disproves anything we know about women not eating able to do math [laughter] is just natural that people respond to it. And what happened is my literary agent after finding a publisher for the book got a book proposal into the hands of the producer who saw it and was loaned away by the fact that she hadnt heard the story. I have been running to catch up. Its kind of a parallel track and the thing that is so exciting for me about that is i am so happy that there is so much enthusiasm for the book and i know that there will be an even greater audience for history because of this movie. But its been a ride for sure. After world war ii women in the industry were let go to make room for a returned servicemen to what extent did that happen at language and was third differential between whites and africanamericans and did some women continue on and have successful careers at langley and rise up through the ranks and responsibilities . Yeah so a was really interesting i had access to all of the employees base letters from 1942 through the president of the newsletters were constantly reporting what was happening in terms of burke routing common terms of the reduction in the force. Right after the war there was a cut back at langley but at the end of the day they made a cut of only 30 employees which means enough people after the war returned home, left their job but they only had to cut 30 people. But then in the next 12 months, 18 months Something Like that theyd started recruiting again and looking particularly for more women to do the computing. So thats really coincided with 1946, 1947 with command of the army being consolidated at fort monroe come and being consolidated at langley the Norfolk Naval base of this entire region there was a lot of speculation that like after world war i the area would go through tremendous depression. I saw so many newspaper articles with people suspect living being concerned about that and what happened is that the cold war started and turned into one of the centers of what we call the militaryindustrial complex which lasted for a very long time. Langley went along with that mood. It did not seem further research that i did that there was a different show and the layoffs between the white women in the black women and the words seemed to get around even after world war ii and a lot of black churches and the lounges of lack high schools that there was this amazing job opening for black women at langley. Would the say congratulations and again i know mom and dad are proud. I spoke to your mom and we are all very proud. Have you got the chance to view the whole movie and my question is if you have is it fiction nor is it accurate quick time and historian and they often take it as the gospel true signs to know what im looking for. Thats a question everybody wants to know. I havent seen the whole movie. They are still working on it. They are working on record time because they are excited about it and they want to make sure that its in the theaters definitely by january and possibly early previews in december so they are still working on it. The thing for me working on the book and the movie at the same time is i kind of had to let go of the facts. I was writing a Nonfiction Book that took place over 30 years of history versus a movie that had to get people into theaters, tell the story, captured the essence of it, hit the highlights and come back home safely in two hours. [laughter] so you know, so and i talked. Closely with the people who are the producers of the movie and the beginning i really had a hard time understanding, you basically cant film a book and put it in the movie and sell movie tickets. So the movie is inspired by jury events. They obviously have to take a segment of the history and then make it exciting. What they decided to do was to focus on that time from sputnik when the russians first launched the sputnik satellite and sending the u. S. And the soviets into cold war until that moment when Catherine Johnson reviewed the calculation for john glenn which the moment has been recounted many many times by many people including johnson herself. They made the decision which being film people was the right decision as film people to take the highlights for the movie instead of the entire book. First of all i want to congratulate you and bringing so many people together from your research. I am really happy to be here because it brings so many people together in a way that they had no idea that they were connected because Dorothy Vaughan used to serve dinner and provide food for students from Hampton Institute. Who would have known that then what she really was all about. Of course we all knew that she was a smart lady and she raised all of these amazing children but im sitting next to people who were not only connected to the people that are in your story, that are in this book but also people who are connected to you, that are connected to me and this person sitting next to me and this person sitting over here i guarantee you there are folks in here that didnt know that they had a connection with each other had it not been for your book and your research. If we just realize that through conversation through passion for research and knowing our history and making that anonymous women wear all connect to it so much. We are also connected on aegis thank you for doing that, providing another way for us to realize that we are all really connected. Thats the part of your story that rings so loud and clear for me. I guarantee you if you asked everybody to raise their hand who is connected to somebody because of your book everybody would raise their hands. They are connected, we are connected. [applause] i just want to thank you also for bringing us all together. We are the Winston Jackson clan and we come from all over to support you with your book so thank you. I also wanted to ask will there be a premier here in hampton for the movie . [applause] that is the question. [laughter] i think nasa has been so supportive of this project not just from the Langley Research center which has been amazing from the very beginning and i cannot thank them enough for what they have done for the book or the people at nasa have also been very supportive. They are very interested in doing what they can to make sure that this community which is the core of this story has the chance to participate in the excitement of that movie and our friends and neighbors and relatives up on the screen. I dont know the details about it but i do know that is something that they are very interested in making sure that they are participating. I question is, im curious, the First Baptist church in the discussion or the idea came into your head when your sunday schoolteacher was mentioned . What specifically that day, you know the lightbulb went off this is a story here because you worship together growing up you knew her basically. What word or what happened that particular sunday to spark Hidden Figures . Is something i write about in this prologue of my book and it happened that my husband and i were here visiting my parents in december of 2010 and we went to church that sunday and met and spoke with my former sunday schoolteacher. Driving back home my father was talking about her and the conversation turned to some of the other would women who worked at nasa that he had worked with and the work that they did. The stories that ive heard in kind of knew when you were from here and you dont really think about it but my husband was not from here. Wait a minute, hold on. Can you please tell me the story again. How come i have never heard this story so a lot of us have that experience of growing up someplace wherever it is and you take it for granted. The neighbors and the talent that is there and the things that happen and this was a case of something happening. In this case it was my husband looking at that and forcing me to appreciate the community that i had grown up in and after the question why were those women there . That is really what happened. It was as simple as that. [applause] i wanted to thank you for writing the book and the opening of the africanamerican museum. Wed be speaking their employer both be featured at the bookstore there and will you be at the africanamerican museum at any time . I didnt hear the first part of your question. The question is will i be speaking at the africanamerican museum . Im still sort of working through a lot of the details of where im going to be and im hoping washington d. C. And possibly that venue will be among them. Congratulations margot. I know your background is in finance and journalism. What was your experience diving into history . This is a question for my historian friend shepard harris. The question is if someone had a backgrounded business and i studied finance in college what was my experience diving into history . I really liked it. I think a lot of people think so many of these things are separate that business is separate from science is separate from humanities and these are also different that its not possible for the same people that the centrists. I always thought of myself as somebody who likes business and finance and entrepreneurship and the process of uncovering this story was wonderful. It was so fascinating. I love digging into archives and in newspaper articles. Are the skills that i learned working in Business Analysis gives analysis skills and even writing skills certainly helped me a lot through this process. I loved every minute of it. Hi. I would like for you to give us that story with john glenn, please. So the question was actually a request to recount what is probably the most wellknown anecdote that has to do with a particular history. It is certainly an anecdote that has been told many times and for the last 50 years basically about Catherine Johnson and her role in the Orbital Mission of john glenns flight that tipped the balance in the space race between the United States and the soviet union. As you know from the research here the computer today we think of as a piece of electronic hardware. Before really the 1950s and 60s in the advance of the enormous electronic calculating machines a computer with somebody who computed and that usually meant it was a woman. So when these electronic computer started coming, being used more widely for Government Applications and Business Applications it took a while for people to trust them with any new technology to figure out how to use them to understand how viable they are. For a long time most of the Aeronautical Research and even into the early part of the Space Program was done by women, the women in the book and women like women in the book. They worked at langley and they worked it off the nasa installations. They were working on the Space Program calculating the church at ture of how were we going to take this man in the canon and blast them into space around the earth . So mrs. Johnson worked in the group called the Flight Research which changed its name over the years but the people in that particular division were very closely linked to the early days of the Space Program and her group was responsible for calculating those trajectories of those early flights. The point at which that mission transformed from a simple ballistic trajectory so send the man up and make comes back down to something that circled the entire earth required a much higher level of communication. Computer technology. Langley was in charge of building the tracking and that was one of glorious jobs setting up these tracking stations around the earth in order to track this man in the space ship as he circled overhead. Computers were brought in to help with that task, to calculate those numbers real time but this was a real moment at which the oldschool computing which had been done by a roomful of women sitting at a desk at 500dollar calculating machines was handing off the work to a room computer, a computer that took up a room as opposed to a roomful of computers that would actually have the Computing Power necessary to track the satellite of the earth with a man inside and get him home safely. As that transition was happening sub i was working this particular division among the many, many, many check lists that you can imagine that nasa had to have two no that this was a mission that was going to be successful and possible among them was getting Katherine Johnson who offered airport in 1969 and laying out the original maps describing the trajectories and how you send them into orbit around the earth, she was asked to compute righthand the same numbers that the computer, the data that the computer had a simulation in which the women competed the numbers and she compare that to what the computer came up with and those two different sets of numbers showed very good rematch between the actual work from the report, then astronaut john glenn was like you know thats one of the things i want to know before i go. Get the girls to do it basically. [laughter] [applause] all of the women who worked there at that time were girls. They were called girls and she was the girl who work as with those particular fellows. Get the girl to do it. The real checks the numbers in her numbers check out with what the computer tells us then you know thumbs up, lets go. That is the john glenn anecdote and it made history. As a young person i would like to know what your message to him other young people as they would the book would he. There are so many things. I think one of the things that i said earlier curiosity and imagination. I think that is really one of the most important lessons that i learned from the book. Another one and this is something if you ask Katherine Johnson than you speak during you say how is it possible for you in the south in a Work Environment that still have segregated bathrooms and cafeterias and all these things are still happening where women may not have even been able to get a credit card in her own name, how were you able to do this work and tell your boss that you were confident that your math would bring them home safely. That seems like a lot to ask and she always said that goes back to what my father said to me. You are no better than anyone else and no one is better than you are. [applause] and i probably have spent more time thinking about that than any other thing that she had said because its one of these things it seems very simple and yet its the most profound thing the part about no one is better than you which gives any of us the confidence to walk into a situation to people feel they are different than we are and feel confident that we can hold their heads high but the other part of you are no better than anyone else, that i think is really the power in this. Katherine johnson to felt it was her prerogative as a black woman in the still segregated south in this environment to extend herself to all of the people she worked with the white male engineers and the white women. She really had it transcendent sense of humanity and true equality of meeting people as equals regardless of who they were. And i know that you are not going to be able i dont think designing all these books. So will you have another time to sign books . Im definitely going to be back on the 30th of september at norfolk state university. [cheering] that will be another opportunity. I will talk about getting as many books signed as possible. So that is it. [applause] cspan washington journal lives every day with policy issues that impact you coming up wednesday morning emily jenkins, staff writer for foreignpolicy and the future of u. S. Russian relations. After the strike in syria. Then douglas holtzeakin discusses what republicans could face as they attempt to replace the beat Affordable Care act. And editor and publisher of the nation on key progressive priorities and how to achieve them in the gop controlled government. The future of the Supreme Court and conflict. Be sure to watch the washington journal live at 7 a. M. Wednesday morning. Join the discussion. Oklahoma congressman Steve Russell on the 100th anniversary of the u. S. Entry into world war i. 100 years ago today where i am standing with concrete evidence of german with International Peace and liberal democracy, the congress of the United States declared war on germany. Homeland security secretary john kelly on the building of the border wall. I have no doubt when i go back and say it wont make sense. Fencing extends over here and Technology Makes sense over here i have no doubt he will tell me to do with. Senator harris on morale at the department of homeland security. In regards to the top to bottomm this is because it included looking into the mobile issues at the agency and putting in place programs and initiatives to actually improve the morale . Holly robinson and pete on Autism Awareness hosted by the sesame workshop. Now with this see all children Amazing Initiative they are showing just how awesome kids with autism truly are and coming to a better understanding makes it all the more accessible and is part of the magic. Secretary ben carson at the national conference. Is when you care more about the rules and the goals and that is killing us as a nation. So we are working very hard to get the inappropriate things out of the way. The representative of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau semiannual report. Do you guarantee that neither you nor anybody has used personal communication devices, text, email, cell phones, and fully complied with the federal records act, yes or no . Cspan programs are available at cspan. Org, on the webpage and by searching the video library. In 1996, entrepreneur peter offered a prize for the first built vehicle that could makes repeated manned space flights. The locale to make a spaceship is about the engineers and investors who tried to win the prize and developed the commercial space industry. She recently spoke at the museum of flight in seattle. This is one hour and 20 minutes. The lovely
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