Hidden Figures Chapters Eighteen–Twenty Summary & Analysis

Chapters Eighteen–Twenty

Summary: Chapter Eighteen: With All Deliberate Speed

On orders from NASA, the Space Task Group is formed, drawing its staff mainly from Flight Research and PARD. The group’s assignment is Project Mercury, culminating in a manned orbit around the Earth. Katherine, a widow with a college-aged daughter, is less socially active than she used to be. However, at church, she meets Jim Johnson, who had served in both the navy and the army and now works as a mail carrier. The two quickly start courting.

At Flight Research, the loss of staff has meant increased responsibilities for Katherine. By 1959, she is doing most of the work putting together a report on the correct launch direction for a manned rocket. Reentry must put the space capsule, with the astronaut inside, down in the ocean at a preselected location, for pickup by ships standing by. Calculations have to take account of Earth’s gravity, its rotation, its slightly flattened shape, and many other factors. When the report is finished, the division chief agrees that she should be listed as a coauthor. By now, she and Jim Johnson have married, so her name appears on the report as Katherine G. Johnson.

Summary: Chapter Nineteen: Model Behavior

Mary and her son, Levi, Jr., work on his entry in the 1960 Newport News soap box derby, to be held in early July. As an engineer, Mary knows more than most fathers about how to improve a soap box racer’s performance. Boys from Black families do not usually know about the derby, much less enter it. For Mary, the contest is a chance for Levi to compete with white boys on equal terms—fair and square, win or lose. Girls are not allowed to enter, but Mary wants better opportunities for them, too. She and a female white colleague give a talk to Black junior high girls about engineering as a career for women. As a Girl Scout troop leader, Mary lobbies for a single, integrated council for the area.

The day of the big race arrives. Levi wins, saving his best time for the final, deciding heat. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he answers, “I want to be an engineer like my mother.”

Summary: Chapter Twenty: Degrees of Freedom

1960 is an eventful year for the Civil Rights Movement. A lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina inspires similar actions elsewhere, including at Hampton. Christine Mann, by now an Institute junior with a heavy courseload, makes time to join the protests and also to participate in voter registration drives. In Virginia, the protestors are opposed by state and county governments who are strongly committed to segregation. The county where Dorothy taught high school even defunds all public schools, rather than integrate them. Langley is moving in the opposite direction. Dorothy joins the newly formed Analysis and Computation Division, where she writes programs to be run on IBM computers. She works alongside white women and, increasingly, alongside men.

When Alan Shepard, in a short suborbital flight in 1961, becomes the first American in space, President Kennedy announces a goal of reaching the Moon by the end of the decade. Langley will be involved, but NASA plans to make Houston the center for this ambitious endeavor. Some of the Langley women are prepared to relocate, but many, including Katherine, are not.

Analysis: Chapters Eighteen–Twenty

When the division chief agrees to list Katherine as coauthor on the report she spearheads for Flight Research, it is a watershed moment for her, for her peers, and for her legacy. With so many different professionals contributing research and expertise to a variety of initiatives, it would be easy for one person to claim credit for another person’s work or to subjectively dismiss the value of their contributions. Barring “girls” from the editorial meetings is just one example of how white men ensure their status at the top of the professional hierarchy, and is an indication of how much Katherine’s talent threatens them. Listing Katherine’s name on the report is not a mere honor or gesture, it guarantees that no one can dispute her contributions to the report or to her department in general.

Levi’s win at the soapbox derby is not just a victory for him—it also represents the barriers that are breaking for other Black children and for Black women. While there is no explicit rule against Black boys competing in the derby, the fact that it has historically been an event for white boys and their fathers shows how closed white social circles are. The bonds between fathers and sons of all races are equally sacrosanct, and the stereotypically masculine nature of them highlight how firmly entrenched gender stereotypes remain. The soapbox derby presents a perfectly level playing field for a mother-son team, as it is a test of preparedness, intelligence, and determination rather than a display of physical prowess. When Levi wins, he shows everyone what Black boys are capable of, and the fact that he aspires to follow in his mother’s footsteps proves that he can look beyond traditional male roles as well.

The contrasts between Langley's path toward integration and the opposition to integration in Virginia's public schools demonstrate that a broadened perspective is necessary in order for people to value social change. The people who make up the community at Langley are, as a whole, much more diverse and highly educated than the constituents of an average American community. Yet the very schools that might feed them talent would prefer to defund themselves rather than integrate. As career professionals, the women at Langley know that their access to education has provided benefits to their employer as well as to them personally. This perspective leads them to leverage their positions of power and competence to help the Civil Rights Movement, as they know that students of all races and ethnicities will benefit from a more inclusive future in space technology and in their lives on Earth.

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