Born in 1918 in the little town of White Sulpur Springs West Virginia, space scientist, mathematician, physiologist, and pioneer, Katherine Johnson was born. “I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.” So said Katherine Johnson, recipient of the 2015 National Medal of Freedom. Inspired by numbers and following education anywhere, Katherine defined a school era where African Americans stopped education at the eighth grade. Facing racial and gender tensions, Katherine Johnson did not give into defeat; she worked hard to lead a change into NASA.
“ Math it’s just there… You’re either right or you’re wrong, that’s what I like about it” quoted from Katherine Johnson. From a young age, she was surrounded and supported by intelligent people who influenced her to follow her passion in Mathematics,
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During a conversation with a family member she learned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was hiring specifically African American Women. She had to wait a year to finally receive a contract due to a verification needed, Mrs. Johnson ended up finding herself in a spot were she had to decide to teach or work for NASA. Without much thought she took the Job at NASA ready to finally but her mathematics skill to the test and prove what Professor Clayton say in her at 15. Mrs. Johnson work progressed everyday she started to climb the ladder of success going from one of the few women who worked on problems assigned from the engineers to a team leader. Johnson didn’t want to just work on the problems, she would ask the how’s, whys, and why not’s. None of the other women had ever asked questions before, because “women didn’t participate in the briefings or attend