![]() She always wants to help.”Įchoing words that her great-grandmother often speaks, Na Kia said she likes tough questions because she enjoys the process of figuring them out methodically. ![]() She looks out for the other students, and she tutors them. “She has a beautiful personality,” Causey said. Amanda Causey, her teacher at Palmer, said she is class president and an active student in the classroom. Gail Brown, a close family friend, praised Na Kia for “her great curiosity” that drives her to ask questions and seek answers. There are many educators in her extended family. “Finally she said, ‘I got all of ‘em! I got a perfect 600!’ And I started screaming like it was the Super Bowl.” ![]() “She came in the door the next day and said ‘What do you think I got?’ I said, ‘585.’ She said, ‘Higher than that.’ Had she not been brought into the attention of popular culture, her achievements would likely never have been known outside a few colleagues and historians - and we would all be the poorer for it.“I told her she would get a 500 at least, but I said, ‘Don’t be disappointed if you get a 585 or something,’” he said. Johnson was a remarkable mind and person whose achievements went for too long unnoticed. These women, like Johnson’s colleagues Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn, not only challenged the racist and sexist zeitgeist of the time, but very simply helped America achieve what is perhaps its most historically remarkable achievement - the Apollo program - but also to aid in the invention and definition of multiple industries. She more than anyone would have been aware of the others in similar positions who, while they may not have been quite as instrumental or prominent in the moment - John Glenn famously asked before a flight that a mechanical computer’s calculations be checked by “the girl,” meaning Johnson - were nonetheless indispensable and quite as hidden. Receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2015 was certainly a welcome perk.īut Johnson may have been wary of an over-concentration of credit. Although Johnson always said her colleagues at NASA were kind and professional, there were nevertheless systematic and deep-seated biases against her at every step of her journey.Īfter the film’s release and acclaim, she treated her sudden fame with bemusement, happy to be recognized but insistent that she had only been doing her job. Johnson and her colleagues struggled unceasingly against racism and sexism, being three women of color attempting to enter an industry which was, and even half a century later remains, dominated by white men. ![]() NASA has also collected numerous historical accounts and anecdotes at a special memorial page. Only recently famous after the film “Hidden Figures” was made about her and her colleagues, she maintained until the end that she was “only doing her job.”įor those who don’t know Johnson’s story, it is probably best told by reading the book (by Margot Lee Shetterly) or watching the movie - which although it takes some license with the events and persons depicted, is a fascinating and revealing triple portrait of its three protagonists. Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who defied prejudice in the ’50s and ’60s to help NASA send the first men to the moon, has died at the age of 101.
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