SPEAK Event: Margot Lee Shetterly - Hidden Figures
Campus Center - Dining Hall - DH
Contact:
Renee Rockford
Light dinner served. Book signing following presentation.
HIDDEN FIGURES: The Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race – Margot Lee Shetterly
Audiences of all backgrounds will be captivated by the phenomenal true story of the black “human computers” who used math to change their own lives—and their country’s future. Set against the rich backdrop of World War II, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Era, and the burgeoning fight for gender equality, this talk brings to life the stories of the four women who worked as mathematicians at NASA during the golden age of space travel. Teaching math at segregated schools in the South, they were called into service during the WWII labor shortages. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had jobs worthy of their skills at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in Hampton, Virginia. Even as Jim Crow laws segregated them from their white counterparts, the women of this all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In this extraordinary talk, author Margot Lee Shetterly talks about race, gender, science, the history of technology, and much else. She shows us the surprising ways that women and people of color have contributed to American innovation while pursuing the American Dream while she instills in us a sense of wonder, and possibility.
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HIDDEN FIGURES: The Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race – Margot Lee Shetterly
Audiences of all backgrounds will be captivated by the phenomenal true story of the black “human computers” who used math to change their own lives—and their country’s future. Set against the rich backdrop of World War II, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Era, and the burgeoning fight for gender equality, this talk brings to life the stories of the four women who worked as mathematicians at NASA during the golden age of space travel. Teaching math at segregated schools in the South, they were called into service during the WWII labor shortages. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had jobs worthy of their skills at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in Hampton, Virginia. Even as Jim Crow laws segregated them from their white counterparts, the women of this all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In this extraordinary talk, author Margot Lee Shetterly talks about race, gender, science, the history of technology, and much else. She shows us the surprising ways that women and people of color have contributed to American innovation while pursuing the American Dream while she instills in us a sense of wonder, and possibility.
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