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40e anniversaire du discours de Martin Luther King I have a dream | Lumni Enseignement

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Le quarantième anniversaire du discours prononcé par Martin Luther King le 28 août 1963 à Washington est célébré par la pose d’une plaque commémorative devant l

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African American are fighting for their rights

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African American are fighting for their rights

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Who is MLK?

His speech is a famous one. Can you describe the general structure?

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Declaration of Independence | Civics 101 | PBS LearningMedia

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The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government. The document that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and that announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain.

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Abraham Lincoln (American English, A2-B1)

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Task : watch the movie and answer the questions

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Task : watch the movie and answer the questions

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Since the 1950s, most commercial jets have had the same basic design: fuselage, swept wings, and podded engines. But decades of engineering innovation in aerodynamics, engines, materials, electronics, and other areas have vastly improved airplane range, speed, capacity, efficiency, and safety.

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Rocket. As a propeller spins, it creates a difference in air pressure between its forward and rear surfaces. But take away the air and you take away the pressure difference that makes the propeller work. In a vacuum it continues to spin freely but creates no thrust.

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Orville and Wilbur Wright discuss Lift Force

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Guide to Aerodynamics - Glenn Research Center | NASA

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Aerodynamics is the study of forces and the resulting motion of objects through the air. What is Aerodynamics? The word comes from two Greek words: aerios, concerning the air, and dynamis, which means force. Aerodynamics is the study of forces

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“Now that NASA had successfully landed astronauts on the moon, Katherine and some of her coworkers talked about a mission to Mars. Others dreamed about going even farther away from earth” (198). Should funding for Spaceship program be as high a priority in 2019 as it was during the 1950s and 1960s? Why or why not?
Is it important for humans to land on Mars or other planets? Why or why not?

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Many Americans are familiar with the astronaut heroes of the 20th century space race - names like Gus Grissom and Neil Armstrong. But who did the calculations that would successfully land these men on the moon?

Several of the NASA researchers who made space flight possible were women. Among them were black women who played critical roles in the aeronautics industry even as Jim Crow was alive and well.

"When the first five black women took their seat in the office in 1943, it was in a segregated office with a 'colored girls' bathroom and a table for the 'colored' computers," author Margot Lee Shetterly tells NPR's Michel Martin.

Shetterly, a Hampton, Va., native and daughter of a former Langley scientist, tells the story of these women in the new book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. The book has already been adapted for the big screen; the film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae premieres in January.

Interview Highlights
On the important work that took place at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
Every time you go to an airport and get on a plane, you are basically taking advantage of the work that was done at Langley. Between World War I and World War II, they did just tremendous amount of fundamental research into basically making airplanes safer, making them more stable ... making them faster and turning them into the technology that is as ubiquitous as it is today.
On the many African-Americans who found opportunities at Langley, including her own father
One of the things that was true about Hampton Road is it's a defense community. There's an Air Force base, there are several Army bases, Coast Guard center, shipyards; so it's a huge place in terms of the defense industrial complex. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of people actually - and among them many African-American - migrated to the Hampton Roads area because of the job boom that was happening. It was a place where you could get stable war jobs.
On whether she was aware, as a child, of the vital work black women were doing at Langley
I knew that many of them worked at NASA. I didn't know exactly what they did. I didn't know why they had started working there. I didn't know or really had questioned why there were so many women of all backgrounds working there until I started working on this book, you know. And it was like a window opened. And all of a sudden, I started looking at not just those women, but my hometown in a very different way.

On Katherine Johnson being the most recognized of all the NASA human computers, black or white
She started working at Langley in 1953. ... Johnson did many things, but among them was co-author a report writing the trajectory equations for putting a craft into orbit around the Earth. One of the most notable moments of her career was leading up to the orbital launch of John Glenn's flight, which was really a turning point in the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

You know, the Russians had got a real head-start into space; America was playing catch-up. And this was also a moment where electronic computers were taking over the task of much of the calculating that was necessary for these increasingly complex missions.

But as sort of a handoff moment between human computers and electronic computers, John Glenn asked Katherine Johnson - he actually asked "the girl"; all of the women working at that time were referred to as "girls."

And he said: Get the girl to do it. I want this human computer to check the output of the electronic computer, and if she says they're good, you know, I'm good to go as part of one of my pre-flight checklists.

So the astronaut who became a hero, looked to this black woman in the still-segregated South at the time as one of the key parts of making sure his mission would be a success.
On why this story is just being told now
That is the one question that everybody asks me about. ... It's something that I really kind of struggle with, because on the one hand, a lot of people did know the story.

In Hampton, Va. - I was just in Hampton yesterday and was talking to a lot of different people, and they were like, "Well, we did know these women, and we knew they worked there and they were all very modest."

If you asked Katherine Johnson how did it feel to be a trailblazer and do this very high-pressure, groundbreaking work, you know, just as often she'd say, "I was just doing my job."

It was 'women's work.' ... The engineers were the men and the women were the mathematicians or the computers. The men designed the research and did the manly stuff and the women did the calculations, you know, at the behest of the engineers.

And I think a lot of the women, period, felt that. They had a lot of different identities in addition to being professional mathematicians at NASA. They were mothers, they were wives, they were people who were active in their church, in their community. So this was only one aspect of their identity.
On computing being "women's work"
It was "women's work." I mean the engineers were the men and the women were the mathematicians or the computers. The men designed the research and did the manly stuff and the women did the calculations, you know, at the behest of the engineers.

And so, I think that it really does have to do with us over the course of time sort of not valuing that work that was done by women, however necessary, as much as we might. And it has taken history to get a perspective on that.

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'Hidden Figures': How Black Women Did The Math That Put Men On The Moon

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Many Americans are familiar with the astronaut heroes of the 20th century space race - names like Gus Grissom and Neil Armstrong. But who did the calculations that would successfully land these men on the moon? Several of the NASA researchers who made space flight possible were women.

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First task : Examples of Jim Crow Laws in the movie

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First task : Examples of Jim Crow Laws in the movie

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- draw the timeline -

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- racial equality
- sexism
- reluctance from family and friends
- more than mathematicians

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- prejudices?
-> women can't/shouldn't/must/have to

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The origins of Jim Crow - introduction (video) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Next, listen to this podcast episode from American Public Media called Remembering Jim Crow. Complete the Podcast 3-2-1 listening guide

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They were strong women not just smart women

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- describe the scene
- what is at stake?

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Hidden Figures | "We Wear Glasses" Clip [HD] | 20th Century FOX

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Découverte d'il y a trois ans grâce à mes collègues d'histoire géographie, la classe puzzle est un moyen fantastique de faire collaborer nos élèves ainsi que de les mettre en valeur. Zoom sur cette pratique qui se rapproche sur certains points du placemat collaboratif !

Pour commencer

Le concept des classes puzzle est très simple, voici les ingrédients phares :

un groupe de 4 à 6 élèves

un document, un évènement ou une leçon tout simplement que vous pouvez découper en plusieurs thématiques différentes

autant de documents différents que de groupes

Comment ça fonctionne ?
Visualisez quatre groupes qui seraient chacun un puzzle :

Chacun de ces groupes à un document spécifique qui est exclusif à ce groupe. En faisant ainsi, vous créez ce qui est communément appelé " un groupe d'experts ". En effet, chacun de ces groupes va devenir expert du sujet de son groupe. Le premier groupe va devenir expert du document A, le second du document B, etc.

Au sein de ce groupe, les élèves vont pouvoir prendre connaissance du document et pourquoi pas le traiter en profondeur (via des questions, des activités, ...). Les groupes experts A, B, C et D vont échanger sur le document qu'ils ont et mutualiser les informations recueillies. Ainsi, ils se préparent à la prochaine étape.

Ensuite, commence la partie la plus importante du concept, le puzzle :

Les membres des groupes A, B, C et D vont se diviser pour former des groupes ABCD. Chaque élève va ainsi devenir ambassadeur de son sujet et va pouvoir apporter sa connaissance nouvelle aux autres.

Les élèves prennent notes des exposés par les autres experts et reportent les informations sur la fiche récapitulative plus haut.

Il s'agit de ma toute première classe puzzle. J'ai donné quatre fiches d'informations sur des personnes ou des groupes qui ont marqué la période de la ségrégation par leurs actions positives. Chaque groupe est devenu expert de l'un de ces sujets.

À la fin de ce système, vous pourrez passer par un quiz ou une évaluation formative de toute forme pour montrer aux élèves qu'ils ont appris des choses de tout cela et pour institutionnaliser les connaissances.
Pourquoi faire ?
La classe puzzle est un moyen efficace de faire collaborer vos élèves. Les compétences engagées dans ce système sont aussi importantes : collaboration, autonomie, la collecte d'informations essentielles ainsi que résumer un texte. Chaque élève du groupe puzzle est important, il détient des informations que les autres n'ont pas.

Les élèves deviennent experts d'un sujet et cela les met en valeur aux yeux des autres groupes. Ils partent de leur groupe d'experts en confiance car ils auront eu le temps de mutualiser et de consolider leurs connaissances autour du sujet.
Un autre exemple
En cliquant sur le bouton, vous aurez accès à la séquence Pop Art d'Isabelle Beaubreuil, vous y trouverez un autre exemple de classe puzzle :

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Images mises en avant et miniature trouvées sur freepik (designed by Vectorfair) Découverte d'il y a trois ans grâce à mes collègues d'histoire géographie, la classe puzzle est un moyen fantastique de faire collaborer nos élèves ainsi que de les mettre en valeur. Zoom sur cette pratique qui se rapproche sur certains points du placemat...

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Father of Civil Rights Movement - A Philip Randolph

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Breaking Barriers: NASA’s Science Superstar Brief

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The Woman Behind Project Mercury | Outlier | Timeline

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Mathematics as a field of science or philosophy was largely closed to women throughout most of history. However, from ancient times through the 19th century and into the early 20th century, some women were able to achieve notability in mathematics.

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Mathematics as a field of science or philosophy was largely closed to women throughout most of history. However, from ancient times through the 19th century and into the early 20th century, some women were able to achieve notability in mathematics.

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Hidden Figures Inspires Exploration of Careers in Science

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recipe if you want to be a strong person

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recipe if you want to be a strong person

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Even if you haven't seen Hidden Figures, the biopic about black women who worked at NASA in 1961 and this award season's highest-grossing nominee for the Oscar for Best Picture, odds are you have watched, or heard about, the film's bathroom scenes.

One bathroom sequence acts as a pivotal moment - black mathematician Katherine Johnson, the main character of Hidden Figures, reveals to her boss why she takes forty-minute-long breaks: The nearest bathroom for "colored ladies" is more than a mile away. The scene showcases the acting prowess of Taraji P. Henson, the actress who portrays Katherine Johnson, and her performance has been lauded by many.

Another bathroom scene, just moments later in the film, has garnered a similar level of attention - this time for its inaccuracy. In the scene, Katherine Johnson's boss Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, uses a crowbar to tear down the sign hanging above one of the colored ladies' restrooms on NASA's campus, in response to Johnson's earlier confession.

"Here at NASA, we all pee the same color," says Harrison.

But this scene never happened. Harrison never took a crowbar to a "Colored Ladies Room" sign. He never solved Johnson's dilemma of having limited accessibility to a legal bathroom. Harrison's action is a fabrication framed as history, one that could easily be recognized as an insidious white savior narrative created and advanced by the white people who made the film.

Theodore Melfi, the director of Hidden Figures and a white male, doesn't see it that way.

When asked by Vice News why the scene is included in the film, despite its erroneousness, Melfi replied, "There needs to be white people who do the right thing, there needs to be black people who do the right thing. And someone does the right thing. And so who cares who does the right thing, as long as the right thing is achieved?"

Melfi doesn't see that, by having Harrison do in fiction what Harrison didn't do in fact, the director is erasing evidence of the magnitude of racism's effect on black lives - to the point where something as simple as a bathroom break causes serious setbacks for black employees. Melfi's decision to include a fictional crowbar scene in the film shapes black history into something palatable for white people.

Abstractions-white people seeing three-fifths of black people rather than their true humanity-is what begat racism in the first place, and what enables it to continue.

Melfi shields white viewers from the uncomfortableness of seeing the totality of the horror their counterparts inflicted on the black women who worked at NASA, and he does so at the expense of the agency of those women, portraying them as being in desperate need for a white man's validation.

The truth is that they lived freely in the fact that their lives were just as valid as anyone else's.

What actually happened - documented in the book from which the film is adapted, Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, written by Margot Lee Shetterly, a black woman - is Katherine Johnson refused to use NASA's colored restrooms. She defiantly used the white bathroom, even though doing so was illegal.

A black screenwriter likely would have written that moment, and a black director likely would have kept it in the film. But the screenplay for Hidden Figures was written by Melfi and a fellow white screenwriter, and directed by Melfi.

Imagine that - a film about overlooked black women achieving excellence in a largely white profession, and yet no black women, let alone any black people at all, are asked to adapt or direct the project.

And therein lies a problem I've written about numerous times and will continue to speak about until the problem is rectified: Hollywood must diversify in all aspects of the filmmaking process, from what happens on set to what happens in the boardrooms of film studios.

But furthermore, there must be ample opportunity for people of color to tell their own stories and not have their intimate narratives entrusted to people who are largely incapable of recognizing the nuances of their lives.

If you don't support racism, you should be for the cause of giving people of color an opportunity to tell their own stories through mainstream means. For what often happens when other people tell their stories is that those inauthentic portrayals become layered with hidden racism. We get additions like the crowbar scene in Hidden Figures, subtractions like the bold action Johnson took. We get abstractions of black people instead of complex human beings.

And abstractions - white people seeing three-fifths of black people rather than their true humanity - is what begat racism in the first place, and what enables it to continue.

I agree that, because of the film Hidden Figures, more people know of Johnson and her peers Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, true pioneers who played essential roles in NASA's greatest space travel achievements. I agree that there is good in that fact.

However, most people who watched Hidden Figures know lies about Johnson and her situation. They don't know the truth.

They watched her stand in the NASA control room during John Glenn's launch into space, but they don't know that she actually watched the takeoff from a television near her desk. They don't know that she wasn't allowed in the room, that when the door to the room slammed in her face onscreen, it remained shut off-screen.

They do not know.

For that knowledge, they'll have to read Shetterly's book, an honest telling of Johnson's work and the work of her colleagues, a history that isn't altered for the sake of white people.

Now that's subversive, something you don't see onscreen every day. Someone - preferably someone black, preferably a woman - should make a film out of that.

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hidden figures: the story of the african-american women who helped win the space race

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Even if you haven't seen Hidden Figures, the biopic about black women who worked at NASA in 1961 and this award season's highest-grossing nominee for the Oscar for Best Picture, odds are you have watched, or heard about, the film's bathroom scenes.

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Michelle Obama Shares Her Takeaway from 'Hidden Figures'

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The White House hosted a screening of the motion picture, Hidden Figures. Afterwards, Michelle Obama share her thoughts on the movie and its importance.

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Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM's Guide:

From the 1930s to the advent of the digital computer in the early 1960s, several hundred female "human computers" were hired by the federal government. Their task was to calculate numbers and to solve the equations necessary for new generations of airplanes, the first American rockets, and the first U.S. manned space flights. They worked with pen, paper, and analog calculating machines. The need for these workers was so great that even in those days of rampant racial discrimination, black women were hired as well as whites. The human computers reported to the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, operated by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) and its successor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

"Hidden Figures" is the story of three black women who made important contributions to the U.S. Space program both before and after the "human computers" were replaced by digital computers. The three real-life heroines of the movie are:

Dorothy Vaughan, who supervises the "colored computers." She sees that digital computers are the wave of the future and learns the prototype programming language FORTRAN, orients herself to a room-sized IBM computer, and encourages the women in her section to do the same.

Katherine Goble Johnson, a gifted mathematician, performs essential calculations and makes important theoretical contributions for determining the trajectories and orbits of America's first satellites and manned space missions. Backing up a digital computer's early efforts, she confirms final calculations for John Glenn's history-making orbit of the Earth.

Mary Jackson takes on Virginia's stridently segregationist education system to attain the graduate qualifications that allow her to become NASA's first female African-American engineer.

The women face entrenched racist and sexist attitudes. However, their persistence and outstanding work boost the U.S. presence in space and blaze a path forward for achievement based on merit. The movie closely follows Margot Shetterly's meticulously researched, award-winning, 2016 historical work of the same name. The validity of the film is confirmed by Katherine Johnson's posthumously published memoir, My Remarkable Journey, at page 7, in which she states, that, "75% of what was shown in the movie is accurate,"

Selected Awards: 2017 Academy Awards Nominations: Best Picture; Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Octavia Spencer); Best Adapted Screenplay; 2017 Golden Globe Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Octavia Spencer); Best Original Score - Motion Picture; 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Featured Actors: Taraji P. Henson as Katherine G. Johnson; Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan; Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson; Kevin Costner as Al Harrison; Kirsten Dunst as Vivian Mitchell; Jim Parsons as Paul Stafford; Mahershala Ali as Colonel Jim Johnson; Aldis Hodge as Levi Jackson; Glen Powell as John Glenn; Kimberly Quinn as Ruth; Olek Krupa as Karl Zielinski; Kurt Krause as Sam Turner; Ken Strunk as Jim Webb.

Director: Theodore Melfi

"Hidden Figures" is well-crafted historical fiction that is inspirational for everyone, especially for girls and students of color. It tells a story that was "never hidden, but unseen." The Mses. Vaughan, Johnson, and Jackson are outstanding role models for young people trying to break through barriers of prejudice and glass ceilings in employment. Additionally, the film provides a historical link to today's STEM and STEAM initiatives in schools and can encourage students to seek out programs that will reinforce their skills and lead to careers in science and technical fields. The movie provides excellent opportunities for class discussion and assignments. [The quotation "never hidden, but unseen" is from Hidden to Modern Figures: Frequently Asked Questions , a NASA website, accessed April 24, 2017.]

Students will be introduced to: (1) a fascinating episode in American history; (2) the struggles of black women to reach racial and gender parity in the workplace; (3) the accomplishments of black women in technical fields and their contributions to America's efforts in aeronautics and the space race of the second half of the 20th century; (4) the disruptive influence of WWII and the Cold War on sexist employment practices and racial discrimination; and (5) a few of the despicable aspects of Jim Crow.

None.

Watch the film with your children and tell them that the three leading actresses in the movie portray women who actually worked at NASA and that the film gives us a good idea of their experiences. Also, be sure to put the film into perspective. Hidden Figures doesn't show the millions of people denied jobs due only to the color of their skin. It doesn't show the full extent of the humiliation endured by black citizens of the United States living in the South during the "Jim Crow" era, the late 1800s through to the 1960s. During that time African Americans were humiliated on a daily basis and denied access to public facilities. In addition, they suffered from discrimination in education, employment and housing. At times they were beaten and lynched.

Beginning with small steps in the 1940s (President Roosevelt's executive orders requiring the hiring of some African Americans in defense industries) and gaining strength each year with the Civil Rights Movement, the United States has developed a growing tradition of inclusion and equal opportunity for minority citizens that runs counter to the shameful tradition of racism. (As of January 2022 millions of African Americans have good jobs and have entered the middle-class. We have elected a black President, twice. There have been two black Secretaries of State and a black man heads the Department of Defense.) The work of well-intentioned Americans is to continue to bend the moral arc of the Universe toward reaching the ideals of the the Declaration of Independence.

The US National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) was the forerunner of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NACA was established in 1917, at the end of the First World War, on the grounds of Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. It was part of the effort to develop America's fledgling aeronautical sector. In the mid-1930s, Langley began hiring female, or "girl," mathematicians to compute solutions to equations using pen, paper, and analog adding machines. The women were called "computers."

By the 1930s it was clear to American leaders that crucial battles in the next war would be fought in the air. It was therefore essential to transform America's unimpressive aircraft arsenal into a powerful aerial armada. This opened the door a crack for women at Langley. During WWII, in the 1940s, when many of the men were sent to soldier in Europe and the Pacific, the need for manpower to fuel the American war materiel machine became a need for woman power as well. Thus, the door for women to serve in technical fields opened a little further.

Melvin Butler, the man responsible for filling the burgeoning job positions at Langley, devised recruitment tools designed to appeal to housewives looking for a different kind of work. His advertisements exhorted them to, "Reduce your household duties . . . ." He issued a challenge, citing the need for "women who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves . . . ." Shetterly, p. 5.

While increasing numbers of women were being integrated into the workforce, another social change was underway. In 1941, as American industry geared up to produce the weapons to fight WWII, a group of civil rights activists led by A. Philip Randolph, head of the union for black male porters, men who worked as sleeping car attendants on America's railroads. Mr. Randolph and others formed the "March on Washington Movement." They demanded that President Roosevelt end racial discrimination in hiring for the defense industry and threatened a massive march on Washington, D.C., to protest racial segregation in employment and in the military. Randolph is credited with forcing FDR to issue Executive Order 8802 which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring for national defense industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). While Executive Order 8802 didn't end discrimination against African Americans in defense industries, it did lead to some job gains for black workers.

In 1943, employment applications began arriving at Langley from black women. For example, Dorothy Vaughan, one of the three main characters in the film, came to NASA when she saw a federal civil service bulletin intended to recruit white women. Even though there was still discrimination against "Negroes," the relentless Mr. Butler began hiring well-qualified black women to work as human computers. He got around the scandalous implications of racial equality by setting up a segregated work area for the smaller number of "colored" computers. It was called West Computing because it was located in a building at Langley's western end. White females worked at East Computing. Shetterly, p. 8.

Propelled by the Civil Rights Movement, opportunities for blacks to work in the aeronautics and space industries opened up a little more during the 1950s and 1960s. Spurred by Soviet Russia's Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the earth, the U. S. recognized the need to provide technical and scientific training to students and to move them into positions that could benefit America's reach for the heavens. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by increasing the resources that went into scientific research and training. Additionally, U. S. leaders were engaged in selling the American way of life to non-aligned nations during the Cold War. They worried that Jim Crow segregation and the second-class citizen status of American "Negroes" would not play well in the court of international opinion. Shetterly, p. 104.

Jim Crow Laws and Customs

In the American South after the Civil War and Reconstruction, the white power structure (formerly the slave-owning class) reasserted itself and imposed a racist system through "Jim Crow" laws and customs. These were designed to denigrate and suppress African Americans. One of the pillars of Jim Crow was separate sanitary facilities. Restrooms and drinking fountains were designated "White Only" or "Colored." There were many fewer restrooms and drinking fountains for blacks than there were for whites. Every day in cities, towns, and villages across the South, African Americans faced personal emergencies when the only restroom available - for what could quickly become an urgent need - was forbidden territory. A black person in that situation had to find some alternative or run the substantial risk of arrest or a beating for using a "White Only" restroom. This disgraceful practice is treated semi-humorously in the film - cinematically, there was no other way to present it. However, the unavailability of restrooms was no laughing matter for African Americans who had to live under Jim Crow.

(The white husband of this writer was once detained, at age 15, by police for defacing a "White Only" sign on a laundromat in Tallahassee, Florida. It was Halloween night in 1963. Hard at work on his task, he heard a sound behind him, looked over his shoulder, and saw a police cruiser come to a stop. He was released after a few hours on the condition that he clean up the sign. An African-American teenager would probably not have been treated in such a lenient fashion.)

Housing

Ms. Shetterly's book describes the proliferation of black middle-class neighborhoods around the Langley campus in the middle of the 20th Century. Despite economic and professional gains by African Americans since that time, segregation in housing hasn't changed much.

... Brown University's US2010 Project [has shown that] in 1940, the average black lived in a neighborhood that was 40 percent white. In 1950 it fell to 35 percent - where it remains today. This average, of course, aggregates data from many neighborhoods where blacks have virtually no exposure to whites, and others where integration is advanced. Nonetheless, by this measure there has been no progress in reducing segregation [in housing] for the last 60 years. Commentary by Richard Rothstein for the Economic Policy Institute, February 3, 2012, accessed on January 9, 2022.

The Impact of the Black Press and the "Double V" Campaign

African-American newspapers, journals, and magazines of the 1940s and 1950s were inspiring and influential in the segregated lives of America's black citizens. They contributed to initiatives to integrate society and achieve economic and social justice. In WWII these publications promoted the "Double V Campaign:" Victory overseas in the war and victory over discrimination at home. This campaign intentionally echoed the concept of the double consciousness of blacks in a racist society, articulated by the African-American intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois, and analyzed in his signature book, The Souls of Black Folk. Dubois wrote that blacks faced a nearly impossible task in constructing internally positive personal identities because they were forced to act in ways that were acceptable to an oppressive white society. To do this they had to see themselves through its eyes: devalued and negatively stereotyped. Shetterly, p. 33. This psychological conundrum confronts every oppressed group.

Euler's Method

Euler's Method, employed by Katherine Johnson in her breakthrough calculations for John Glenn's Friendship Seven orbit, was devised in the 18th century. The idea behind Euler's Method is to approximate a curve using the concept of local linearity to join multiple small line segments of the curve. Mathscoop.com. The method was one of many mathematical innovations developed by Leonhard Euler of Switzerland, one of the great mathematicians of his time. Euler lived from 1707 to 1783, dying just seven years after the U.S. declared independence from Great Britain.

Unless the class has already studied American history of the 20th century, set the scene before for showing the film with direct instruction covering the following points:

This movie takes place during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, 1947 - 1991. From the end of WWII until 1957 most Americans thought the U.S. was the technological leader of the world. Then, on October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the earth. Sputnik was followed by additional Russian successes in space: the first animal in orbit (1957, the dog Laika); the first animals and plants returned alive from space (1961); the first human in orbit (1961) etc. From 1957 to 1961 the Russians led the space race as the early U.S. space program was plagued by failures. People all over the world looked up at the sky and wondered at the Russian achievement. Americans of all races, classes, and backgrounds were united in their desire for the United States to put a man into orbit and bring him home safely, as soon as possible.

At the same time, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Civil Rights movement was gathering force. However, most of the Southern U.S., including Virginia, was still in the grip of laws and customs designed to denigrate and oppress African Americans. These were referred to as "Jim Crow." In addition, black people and women of all races suffered from discrimination in employment.

In the early 1960s, electronic computers were in their infancy. The people designing airplanes and rockets used analog adding machines. An ingenious analog device called a slide rule assisted engineers and scientists with multiplication, division, and finding exponents, roots, and logarithms.

After Watching the Movie

Tell the class that the movie, "Hidden Figures," does not claim to describe the full effects of racism or the broad scope of the Civil Rights movement. It shows an episode in the ongoing process of eliminating discrimination against blacks and women in employment in the U.S.

After watching the film, students will be interested in reading the Helpful Background section. Click here for a version in Microsoft Word, suitable to be printed and distributed to the class. Teachers should feel free to modify or add to the handout as may be appropriate for their classes.

What is Real, What is Dramatic License, and a Few Interesting Anecdotes

Katherine Johnson estimates that the film is 75% accurate. My Remarkable Journey, p. 7. The author of the book, Hidden Figures, Margot Shetterly, estimates that she has identified almost 50 black women who were working at Langley as computers, mathematicians, engineers, and researchers. She surmises that about "70 more can be shaken loose." Approximately 400 white women were working in the same capacity.

Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson worked for Dorothy Vaughan in West Computing, but the three were not close friends.

The character of Al Harrison, Katherine Johnson's boss at the Space Task Group, is a composite. NASA says he is largely based on Robert C. Gilruth, who became the director of the Space Task Group in 1958. Shetterly nominates engineer John Stack as the model for Harrison.

Fly-by-wire navigation (FBW), in which the trajectory of the flight is controlled by computer and not by the pilot, began with the Mercury mission. In 1962 FBW wasn't as reliable as it is today. The early astronauts, who were all former test pilots, hated FBW and lobbied hard for back-up manual controls. As they said, they didn't want to be "spam in a can." In fact, the manual controls saved the life of at least one astronaut. For a description of the struggle between the astronauts and the engineers over FBW. See Learning Guide to The Right Stuff .

John Glenn really did request that Katherine Johnson double check the computer calculations. Glenn said, ". . . [G]et the girl. . . . If she says the numbers are good, then I'm ready to go." NASA Biography of Catherine Johnson, accessed April 22, 2017 . Ms. Johnson did the computations in the days leading up to the launch, not when Glenn was about to climb into the spacecraft and blast off. My Remarkable Journey, pp. 160 & 161.

The characters who exhibit the most adherence to Jim Crow attitudes, the initially hostile police officer, the condescending white engineer in the Space Task Group, Paul Stafford, and Mrs. Mitchell, the white supervisor, all change their behavior. The policeman escorts the three protagonists to work. Mrs. Mitchell indicates her growing respect for Dorothy by addressing her as "Mrs. Vaughan" at the film's end. And Paul Stafford reverses his resistance to Katherine's presence and status, bringing her a cup of coffee. Coffee serves as a symbol for acceptance onto the NASA team.

Mrs. Mitchell's real-life counterpart was Margery Hannah, who behaved differently than the character in the film. She "went out of her way to treat the West Area women as equals, and had even invited some of them to work-related social affairs at her apartment." Shetterly p. 47.

It was actually Mary Jackson who lost her cool about the segregated bathrooms. Dorothy Vaughan had sent her on a special assignment to East Computing. Mary "blew her top" to wind tunnel engineer Kazimierz "Kaz" Czarnecki (Karl Zielinski in the movie) about the egregious situation. He listened, then invited her to come work for him. He became her mentor, and she eventually organized his retirement party. Shetterly, p. 254. Katherine Johnson did not have experiences of having to walk long distances to find a "Colored Women" bathroom, but other "colored computers" did. My Remarkable Journey, p. 7. The filmmakers scripted the scenes of Katherine Johnson racing across the campus and her (Mary Jackson's) explosion to demonstrate what other black women had to endure.

The seating at the cafeteria at Langley was segregated. A West Computer named Miriam Mann found the "Colored Computers" table sign to be especially loathsome. She would periodically remove it, and it would reappear on the table some days later. Eventually, it wasn't replaced. Shetterly, p. 44. This could have been the inspiration for Katherine's humiliating coffee pot encounters which she does not recount in her memoir.

Dorothy's visit to the segregated library with her children depicts another obstacle to equality in the Jim Crow South. Separate and unequal schools were not the only barriers to learning and advancement that confronted African Americans. The photo below tells it all.

1. Who or what is the antagonist in this story? What defeats the antagonist? Explain whether or not you believe that this shows a process that works in reality.

Suggested Response:

2. What or who are the "Hidden Figures" referred to in the title to this movie?

Shetterly cites two possibilities in her book Hidden Figures: One is the women, and especially the black women, whose contributions to America's space effort went largely unrecognized until the movie was released. Another possibility is that the "Hidden Figures" are the mathematical figures that had to be uncovered in calculating trajectories and orbits for the astronauts.

3. Does this movie paint an accurate picture of racism in the Southern United States under Jim Crow? [or] What are some of the things about racism in the Southern U.S. under Jim Crow that this movie doesn't show?

It's not that the film is inaccurate, it's simply that the story of the three black ladies who found jobs at NASA doesn't lend itself to showing most of the terrible things that racists in the Southern U.S. did to black people: the daily humiliation, the beatings, the lynchings, etc. The movie doesn't tell the story of the millions of people denied education and jobs because of the color of their skin.

4. What role does the scene with the policeman and the three protagonists play in the story? What does this tell you about the position of the black women in Virginia society in the late 1950s?

This scene foreshadows what happens in the film in terms of the attitude of many whites at NASA toward the black women with whom they work. It also serves as a reminder of the ever-present threat of force against black Americans inherent in Jim Crow, which continues to a lesser extent to this day.

5. [This question should be preceded by Question #1.] One view of human relations is that in our lives we are associated with different groups, called "tribes" in this formulation. There are involuntary tribes that we are born into, like families, clans, and countries. Then there are the tribes of affiliation which we join out of interest and belief. For example, Katherine Johnson could be said to belong to the following "tribes of affiliation:" mathematicians, the human computers, the NASA Space Task Group, mothers, church members, basket ball fans, etc. Analyze the conflict in this film in terms of this view of human relations.

Racism broke down because the voluntary "tribe" of the NASA workforce became more important than the societally assigned "tribe" of race. The concept of race and racial differences is a societal construct. To give an example, many people who are identified as African American have as many white ancestors as they do black ancestors. That means that many of their genes are, in fact, caucasian. So, why are they not classified that way?

Note: It's a great exercise to ask students to identify the tribes to which they belong, both those assigned by tradition and society and those assumed voluntarily. Which are the most important?

6. Three characters in the film exhibit racist tendencies. Identify one of them, describe how their racism is shown, and what happens to their attitudes through the course of the film.

The characters who exhibit the most adherence to Jim Crow attitudes are the police officer shown at the beginning of the movie; Mrs. Mitchell, the Female Computers' white supervisor, and Paul Stafford, the condescending white engineer in the Space Task Group. By the end of the film, each changes their attitudes: the policeman escorts the three protagonists to work; Mrs. Mitchell indicates her growing respect for Dorothy by addressing her as "Mrs. Vaughan," and Paul Stafford reverses his resistance to Katherine's presence and status, bringing her a cup of coffee.

7. Coffee serves as a symbol in this movie. What does it symbolize?

Professional respect and acceptance as a member of the NASA team.

8. What is the role of the romance between Katherine Johnson and the Army officer that she married in the story?

Suggested Response:

It shows that feminism is not just work related and that a man with the strength of character can appreciate and love a strong woman if he abandons stereotyped ways of viewing women. It is also an accurate portrayal of Mrs. Johnson's second marriage and her second husband, Colonel Jim Johnson. My Remarkable Journey, pp. 140, 141, 207, 214 - 216.

HUMAN RIGHTS

See Discussion Questions numbered 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

COURAGE

1. Describe three acts of courage by the heroines in the film. Why are these actions particularly courageous?

There are several possibilities: Dorothy Vaughan: repeatedly asking to be promoted to the position of supervisor and walking into the computer room to work with the new machine; Katherine Johnson: entering the Space Task Group; and Mary Jackson: bringing her case to court and speaking up to the judge. These actions were particularly courageous because they required challenging the color bar, something that had been enforced in the South for four centuries through intimidation and violence. (For an example, see the picture above of the police forcibly removing a black woman from a library.)

RESPECT

(Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule; Be tolerant of differences; Use good manners, not bad language; Be considerate of the feelings of others; Don't threaten, hit or hurt anyone; Deal peacefully with anger, insults, and disagreements)

1. What is the basic moral failing of racism?

Suggested Response:

There are many valid responses. Examples include racists do not treat others with respect; they do not follow the Golden Rule, and they are not tolerant of differences.

Each of the discussion questions can serve as quick write or essay prompts.

1. The following are research topics for essays by students. Length of essay and extent of research depend upon the capabilities of the class.

Describe the origin and history of Jim Crow.

Define the terms"de facto" and "de jure" and describe how they relate to Jim Crow.

Compare and contrast racial discrimination in the North and in the South during the period 1950 - 1965. Use at least three sets of comparisons. Provide citations to newspaper articles, books, or pages on the Internet that show the particular incidents.

Describe the changes in American attitudes towards race and racism (both North and South) from before Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1954) to Selma and the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1964).

For students who live in the Southeastern United States, describe the history of Jim Crow laws or customs in your state/city.

[There is no correct answer to the the questions posed by the next two essay prompts. Students should be informed that any response that (a) is based on core Western values, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, (2) comports with the Golden Rule, and (3) uses logical analysis, will be acceptable.]

2. Write an essay evaluating whether the U.S. should pay reparations to its African-American citizens in light of the following:

National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates has written that the practice of "redlining," or denying mortgage and financial services to blacks, has prevented the intergenerational transfer of wealth in families that is a mainstay of middle-class financial security in the U.S. The Case for Reparations - Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, June 2014 Issue.

3. Some people feel that ethnic or racially segregated neighborhoods afford groups of people a sense of belonging and an opportunity to "be themselves" and feel at home. Others believe that racially segregated neighborhoods are not only illegal but un-American. Write an essay answering the following question, "When do neighborhoods that are divided along racial or ethnic lines become ghettos?"

4. Research and present information on the STEM or STEAM program at your school. Describe any outreach efforts to enroll students of color or girls in these programs.

5. Research and present information on courses of study in engineering, computer programming, mathematics, or robotics at three of your top choice colleges/universities.

6. Write a persuasive job notice intended to recruit female students and students of color to the fields of math, computing, and sciences.

7. Conduct interviews (in person or via video conference) with math/science/engineering professionals of color/female professors about their career paths and the obstacles they have had to overcome.

Multimedia:
Anchor Standard #7 for Reading (for both ELA classes and for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Classes). (The three Anchor Standards read: "Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media, including visually and quantitatively as well as in words.") CCSS pp. 35 & 60. See also Anchor Standard # 2 for ELA Speaking and Listening, CCSS pg. 48.
Reading: Writing: Speaking and Listening:
Not all assignments reach all Anchor Standards. Teachers are encouraged to review the specific standards to make sure that over the term all standards are met.

Shetterly, Margot Lee, Hidden Figures, New York, William Morrow, 2016; and

Johnson, Katherine with Joyce Hylick and Katherine Moore, My Remarkable Journey, A Memoire, Amistad, 2021.

This Learning Guide was written byDeborah Elliott and was published on May 9, 2017. It was revised with the assistance of James A. Frieden and republished on January 10, 2022.

RANDALL KENNEDY, Professor, Harvard Law School on the two alternative traditions relating to racism in America:

"I say that the best way to address this issue is to address it forthrightly, and straightforwardly, and embrace the complicated history and the complicated presence of America. On the one hand, that's right, slavery, and segregation, and racism, and white supremacy is deeply entrenched in America. At the same time, there has been a tremendous alternative tradition, a tradition against slavery, a tradition against segregation, a tradition against racism.

I mean, after all in the past 25 years, the United States of America has seen an African-American presence. As we speak, there is an African-American vice president. As we speak, there's an African- American who is in charge of the Department of Defense. So we have a complicated situation. And I think the best way of addressing our race question is to just be straightforward, and be clear, and embrace the tensions, the contradictions, the complexities of race in American life. I think we need actually a new vocabulary.

So many of the terms we use, we use these terms over and over, starting with racism, structural racism, critical race theory. These words actually have been weaponized. They are vehicles for propaganda. I think we would be better off if we were more concrete, we talked about real problems, and we actually used a language that got us away from these overused terms that actually don't mean that much. From Fahreed Zakaria, Global Public Square, CNN, December 26, 2021

Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM's Guide: TWO CONTRASTING TRADITIONS RELATING TO RACISM IN AMERICA and a Tragic Irony of the American Revolution: the Sacrifice of Freedom for the African-American Slaves on the Altar of Representative Democracy.

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Give your students new perspectives on race relations, on the history of the American Revolution, and on the contribution of the Founding Fathers to the cause of representative democracy. Check out TWM's Guide: From the 1930s to the advent of the digital computer in the early 1960s, several hundred female "human computers" were hired by the federal government.

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Selected Awards:  2017 Academy Awards Nominations: Best Picture; Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Octavia Spencer); Best Adapted Screenplay; 2017 Golden Globe Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Octavia Spencer); Best Original Score – Motion Picture; 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

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The women, and especially the black women, whose contributions to America’s space effort went largely unrecognized until the movie was released.
The mathematical figures that had to be uncovered in calculating trajectories and orbits for the astronauts.

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NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind.

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Katherine Johnson was a mathematician and former NASA "computer" who helped send astronauts to the moon.

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The Story of Mathematics - A History of Mathematical Thought from Ancient Times to the Modern Day

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Leonhard Euler was one of the giants of 18th Century mathematics and he studied for a while under Johann Bernoulli at Basel University.

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RACISM IN AMERICA:  TWO CONTRASTING TRADITIONS