The Power of Community

An adopted extended family from the West Computing office stepped into the void left by the aunts and uncles and cousins in Farmville. . . [they] bonded over pressure distribution curves in the office and their children and community lives outside of it. . .  In the summers, the families began the tradition of organizing a picnic at Log Cabin Beach. . .

In Chapter Nine, the large network of friends that Dorothy has created in Newport News provides practical and emotional support. This community she has cultivated makes it possible to raise her children while her husband Howard is often away for work, and she works long hours. Howard and Dorothy also have an incredibly supportive family and community in Farmville. The love and support of this community makes it possible for Dorothy to return quickly to work after the births of her fifth and sixth children. This support becomes a focal point in the family members’ lives.

Her free time was absorbed by her position as the leader of Bethel AME’s Girl Scout Troop No. 11. . .  The organization’s commitment to preparing young women to take their place in the world. . . Many of the girls in Troop 11 were from working-class, even poor, families. . . The door to the Jackson home was always open to them. Mary became a combination of teacher, big sister, and fairy godmother. . . steering them toward college.

Chapter Ten illustrates Mary’s community-minded spirit. Leading the Girl Scouts, one of her “life-long loves,” is one way Mary makes change in her community. The ideas of loyalty, honesty, and love of country are values that Mary learned growing up with her parents. Frank and Ella Winston are community leaders in Hampton whose good works and commitment to their church and community make Hampton a better place, and Mary is clearly following their example. Mary also has taken a special interest in making sure girls know that they can achieve great things with community support and hard work. She takes special care to teach this to the girls in her Girl Scout troop and later even visits schools in the community to share this message with students. 

Jimmy’s brother-in-law was the director of the Newsome Park Community Center. . .Through his job and relationships with the residents in Newsome Park, he was one of the most well-connected individuals on the Virginia Peninsula, and knew many women of West Computing, including Dorothy Vaughan, who lived in the neighborhood.

At a family wedding detailed in Chapter Twelve, Jimmy’s brother-in-law, Eric Epps, introduces Katherine to a world of possibilities. Eric will go on to connect Katherine to his community in Newsome Park, including Dorothy Vaughn. When Eric brings Katherine to Langley, she remembers their family’s connections from White Sulphur Springs, and that, years ago, Dorothy’s husband worked with her father at the Greenbrier resort. Repeatedly, strong family ties and community connections enable the women of West Computing to reach their full potential.

Discrimination

Brilliant and ambitious, Claytor waited in vain to be recruited to join the country’s top math departments, but West Virginia State College was his only offer. . . As if trying to redeem his own professional disappointment through the achievements of one of the few students whose ability matched his impossibly high standards, Claytor maintained an unshakable belief that Katherine could meet with a successful future in mathematical research all odds to the contrary.

Chapter Eight reveals that that both Katherine’s father, Joshua Coleman, and Professor William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor have missed opportunities in their lives. Joshua Coleman has a brilliant mind for mathematics, but due to his circumstances he was only able to receive a sixth-grade education and works as a bellman at a luxury hotel. Dr. Claytor, too, is incredibly brilliant, but he waits in vain for one of the country’s top university math departments to recruit him. As W.E.B DuBois stated, the only hope of the “young colored men” is to work for the Black universities of the South. Due in part to their own various disappointments, both Joshua and Dr. Claytor set their hopes on Katherine’s future, and their guidance plays an important part in putting her in a position to succeed. 

Unlike the public schools, where minuscule budgets and ramshackle facilities exposed the sham of ‘separate but equal,’ the Langley employee badge supposedly gave Mary access to the same workplace as her white counterparts. Compared to the white girls, she came to the lab with as much education, if not more. She dressed each day as if she were on her way to a meeting with the president.

In Chapter Eleven, the white women humiliate Mary when they deny her the use of their restroom and subsequently mock her by proclaiming they have no idea where her restroom would be. While segregation is a fact of life and a reality for Mary, she expects to be respected and treated equally at Langley because of the way she presents herself and because of the quality of her work. She feels demoralized to learn that many people at Langley participate in the same systemic racism as the rest of the country.

The decision to prioritize a victory in space over problems on Earth was the most widespread criticism against the space program. But even those voices in the black community who expressed admiration for the astronauts, who supported the program and its mission, took NASA to the woodshed for its lack of black faces.

Chapter Twenty-Three contrasts the success of the moon landing with the stagnation of civil rights for Black men and women. Protestors have come to Cape Kennedy along with Civil Rights Leader Reverend Ralph Abernathy to question the worthiness of the money being spent on the space program. There are many people in Watts, Detroit, and rural Appalachia who are so poor that they cannot afford food. In addition, while white men go to space, Black people face issues of discrimination and unfair policing. Due to the white face of NASA, it seems the Black engineers, mathematicians, and scientists will continue to be hidden even within their own professional Black community. This won’t change for many years to come.

The Roles of Persistence versus Luck in Gaining Opportunities

. . . at thirty-two years old, a second chance—one that might finally unleash her professional potential—found Dorothy Vaughan. . . The Colemans’ youngest daughter would eventually find the same second chance years in the future, following Dorothy Vaughan down the road to Newport News, turning the happenstance of meeting during the Greenbrier summer into something that looked a lot more like destiny.

In Chapter Three, Dorothy is on the road to Langley to take advantage of a second chance at a better future. She isn’t going to let anything stand in the way of the career that she needs to support both her family and her ambitions. Though luck is what leads her to apply for the computing position, it is her education and talent that makes her uniquely prepared to take on the job at Langley. Her organizational and management skills on top of her brilliance help her to succeed. When opportunity presented itself, Dorothy was ready to meet it. 

By securing jobs in Langley’s West Computing section. . .In 1940, just 2 percent of all black women earned college degrees, and 60 percent of those women became teachers. . . Exactly zero percent of those 1940 college graduates became engineers. And yet, in an era when just 10 percent of white women and not even a full third of white men had earned college degrees, the West Computers had found jobs and each other. . .

Chapter Five describes Langley’s West Computing section as “the world’s most exclusive sorority,” and Dorothy is very grateful to have found this opportunity at the “single best and biggest aeronautical research complex in the world.” Many of the women have been involved in sororities at historically Black universities, so this atmosphere of excellence in the company of other Black women is familiar to many of the West Computers. Clearly, they all have worked hard and possess vast amounts of talent, but Melvin Butler notes that it is not uncommon for Black women to have more talent and experience than some of the white women they work alongside.

But simple luck is the random birthright of the hapless. When seasoned by the subtleties of accident, harmony, favor, wisdom, and inevitability, luck takes on the cast of serendipity. Serendipity happens when a well-trained mind looking for one thing encounters something else: the unexpected. It comes from being in a position to seize opportunity from the happy marriage of time, place, and chance. It was serendipity that called her in the countdown to John Glenn’s flight.

Chapter Twenty-Three recounts Katherine’s role in John Glenn’s historic space flight. Katherine says that luck put her in the right place at the right time, but she sells herself short. Katherine is both uniquely prepared and highly skilled. Throughout the book, Shetterly uses the word “serendipity,” and in this quotation she explains how she defines it. The reason John Glenn asks for Katherine to check the mathematics needed for his space flight is that he knows she is incredibly gifted at what she does. It is perhaps luck and timing that placed the women in their jobs, but it is talent and perseverance that makes it so when opportunities are presented, they are prepared to meet these challenges.

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