A Short Introduction

Social Justice Event: Hidden Figures

As I scrolled througout the list of the Social Justice Events I could attend, I was excited to find that the movie "Hidden Figures" on the list. I have not had the opportunity to watch this movie until this morning.
Hidden Figures tells the story of a group of African American women who helped get the first ship into space. The money is told through the three main characters, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson all of which played a key role in launching the first space ship. The Movie opens displaying a classroom, in which you find out is a gifted school for 6th graders and above. Katherine is just eight years old. This is a small scene but extremely important, as there would be gifted schools for white children. Katherine is able to solve an algebraic problem at just 8 years old, proving how smart she is.

The movie then jumps to when Katherine and two of her coworkers are stopped on the side of the road by a racist police cop who makes a remark referring to their occupation. He then gives them a police escort to work. When they arrived at work, there is obvious segregation as their building is not connected to the entire building. In their workspace, you find a large group of Black women completing the math equations in order to help the research. Vivian, which is their boss, walks in asking for a new "computer" (a person who can complete extensive math equations), Dorothy promotes Katherine. Soon Katherine is being escorted to the main research building where her first interaction with the department is when she is mistaken for a janitor. When she is given work to double check by white men, they have crossed out the necessary information because she doesn't have a high enough clearance in order for her to do her job. This makes it extremely difficult. Since the research facility is segregated, Katherine must run a mile to use the bathroom each day, adding another difficulty to her job. At one point during the movie, she gets up to grab a cup of coffee and suddenly all of the staff in the room are disgusted because in Virginia they use separate coffee makers.
Mark Jackson at the time is transferred over to the enigerring department where during her first day she walks in the testing room to admit the capsule and suddenly her shoe gets stuck in the crate. When the capsule fails, Mary makes a point that could improve the capsule and the head engineer says that she should become an engineer herself. Yet, she is unable to do so because she is a black women and no engineer schools accept Black people.

Throughout the movie there are small, subtle remarks that white people make to display their privilege and racist attitudes towards these women. When the director of the flight research finally notices that Katherine takes "long" bathroom breaks, he aggressively approaches her and she then explains that she doesn't have a bathroom in this building. Al Harrison then hears down the "white only bathroom" sign in the building. Katherine is then invited into the exclusive meeting after there were disputes before arguing that a person of color has never been involved in these meetings.
Soon a new technological development is created, called an IBM computer, which would replace all of the Black women working on the math equations. Dorothy then realizes that no one knows how to use them, so she starts teaching all of her workers how to understand the computer, forcing the company to keep them because no one else know show to use them.
Soon lift off occurs and everything the entire facility has worked for happens. Mary is then able to get her degree, Dorothy is assigned to supervisor and Katherine went on to calculate the trajectories for 1969 Apollo 11. This movie displays the hardships and struggles these three women and many others went through on a daily basis. These women are American Heros.