Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black 'West Computing' group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens." -Publisher's description. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam's call, moving to Hampton, Virginia, and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South's segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. The book was a top book of 2016 for both TIME and Publisher’s Weekly, a USA Today bestseller and a 1 New York Times bestseller. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Hidden Figures is a movie based on the book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly. "Before John Glenn orbited the earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as 'human computers' used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. NASA/NASA Many Americans are familiar with the astronaut heroes of the 20th century space race names like Gus Grissom and Neil Armstrong.
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