Hidden Figures: The Link Between Success and The Recognition of Diversity

After World War II triggers a series of labor shortages, a Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory division finds itself desperate to hire over 400 mathematicians. The urgency of the moment forced Langley to rethink their hiring practices. Gender and race would no longer stand as obstacles to employment opportunities at the company. Of those newly employed, Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Christine Dardon, and Mary Jackson are highlighted in Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures. The women work as “human computers”, or mathematicians, leading America to one of the most significant aeronautical successes, the moon landing. Although their role in the mission was crucial, their contributions went unrecognized because of the color of their skin and their gender. Through the challenges and that these women faced because of their race and gender, author Margot Lee Shetterly argues powerfully that the foundations of success are built on the recognition of diversity and the promotion of talent in everybody.

Hidden Figures reveals the correlation between success and the recognition of diversity in the workplace. When the four women start at Langley, they are immediately met with racial and gender injustices from their white male colleagues. Cardboard signs hung over lunchroom tables and bathrooms reading that the area was only for the use of the “Colored” or “White”. This was the ‘Jim Crow’ era, and laws in many states created strict segregation according to race. However, just because this signage existed, it did not mean that these women didn’t find ways to challenge the racist practice. One day, Miriam Mann was frustrated by the demeaning way she was treated because of the color of her skin and “at some point during the war, the colored computers sign disappeared into [her] purse and never came back. The separate office remained, as did the segregated bathrooms, but in the Battle of the West Area Cafeteria, the unseen hand had been forced to concede victory to its petite but relentless adversary… Miriam Mann's insistence on sending the humiliating sign to oblivion gave her and the other women of west computing just a little more room for dignity and the confidence that the laboratory might belong to them as well”. Her rebellious act of removing the sign gave the black computers a sense of autonomy. Unfortunately, many other forms of segregation were still in place, but this was a powerful act of agency on behalf of these mathematicians.

Shetterly’s story isn’t just about bathrooms and drinking fountains. The color and gender lines that these women were forced to accept included ‘segregated professional recognition’ as well. Female mathematicians were important contributors to the computation going into the development of the space program, but according to Shetterly they were “rarely rewarded by seeing her name alongside his on the final publication”. Since publication was essential for career advancement, the misrepresentation made them immune to any sort of recognition for their work; therefore, consideration for promotion.

Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures included such a talented group of mathematicians that, over time, they prove their importance to the company. Although all of the women are very good at what they do, it is Katherine Johnson that emerges as the most indispensable for making calculations that the astronauts and engineers needed to travel to the moon and back. The only person that astronaut John Glenn trusted to check the calculations for his flight was Katherine Johnson. It was his ability, unlike many of his peers, to be able to look past gender and race and recognize excellence. Katherine Johnson’s calculations were critical to the first successful lunar landing and the safe return of the spacecraft and the astronauts. His support for Johnson and the other black computers was reciprocated by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), by releasing a statement confirming their integration. NACA Lawyers claimed “eighty percent of the world's population is colored…In trying to provide leadership in world events, it is necessary for this country to indicate to the world that we practice equality for all within this country. Those countries where colored persons constitute a majority should not be able to point to a double standard existing within the United States'. By recognizing and then demolishing the “double standard” blacks face in the United States, Langley unifies the workplace and acknowledges the work done by their black workers. Through this, Shetterly provides a powerful argument at the end of the book that diversity in the workplace encourages excellence and success at the highest level.

The year 2019 marks the 400th anniversary of the first ship to arrive in Jamestown with slaves. Shetterly ends her book with the powerful fact that the Langley Company in Virginia was just a few miles from the location where the first slaves arrived in 1619. These women are part of a long tradition of people who have had to prove their worth and value at a higher level simply because of the color of their skin. It is their contributions that helped pave the way for others and that is why Hidden Figures is a story that everyone should know.