Four black mathematicians from the American space race were recognized Wednesday at a medal ceremony with Congress’ highest honor.
The Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to the families of Catherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden at the U.S. Congress. Darden watched the ceremony from her home in Connecticut.
Johnson’s handwritten calculations helped John Glenn become the first American to circumnavigate the Earth in 1962.
The medal was also awarded to all women who worked as mathematicians, engineers and “human computers” in the American space program between the 1930s and 1970s.
“By honoring them, we honor the best souls of our country,” said writer Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book Hidden Figures was adapted into a film in 2016.
The predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, hired hundreds of women to do the calculations needed for space flight. The black women who were hired worked in a separate mathematics unit at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Johnson’s handwritten accounts of John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, the country’s highest civilian honor.
Vaughn rose to become NASA’s first black female superintendent, and Jackson was the space agency’s first black female engineer. Darden is best known for his research into sonic booms.
