Washington CityFour Black female mathematicians from America's space race were given Congress' highest honor at a medal ceremony Wednesday.
The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to the families of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden at the US Capitol. Darden watched the ceremony from her home in Connecticut.
In addition, a medal was awarded to all women who worked as mathematicians, engineers and “human computers” in the American space program from the 1930s to the 1970s. “By honoring them, we honor the best of our country’s spirit,” said author Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book “Hidden Figures” was adapted into a film in 2016.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics—the predecessor to NASA—hired hundreds of women to perform mathematical calculations for space missions. The black women who were hired worked in a separate unit of female mathematicians at what is now NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Johnson’s handwritten calculations helped John Glenn become the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Vaughan became NASA’s first black female supervisor, and Jackson became the space agency’s first black female engineer. Darden is best known for her research on sonic booms.