The science of uplifting women

careers at Langley.

“They weren’t women who came in the war, then got married and left, or went to another centre. Their lives in many ways intersected these big sweeps of history.

“Dorothy Vaughan was a teacher at the high school where the students eventually initiated the Brown v Board of Education ruling that, in legal terms, ended segregation in public schools in the US, which is amazing.

“Katherine Johnson actually integrated the public university in West Virginia. And Mary Jackson had to petition state courts to be allowed to attend an all-white college to get the qualifications needed to become an engineer.

“At every turn these women were involved in World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement. I really wanted to be able to tell a multi-layered story through the same women.”

The film condenses a lot of history. It also includes broader characters who are fictional composites of real people, the main one being Nasa bigwig Al Harrison, played by Kevin Costner, whose task force reaches far greater trajectories thanks to Johnson’s calculations at a time when the US was second to the USSR in the race to the moon.

The irony is that Nasa was full of the brightest and best minds but they still went along with the awful segregation of the time. A split between black and white that was not equal.

The triumph of Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson is remarkable for the challenges they faced.

“You can’t change history… What you can change is how you look at it… You need to decide that you’re going to use a story to enlighten and inspire people in the modern day,” says Shetterly.

“Nasa has been amazing with their support of this story and these women. You don’t get the good without the bad but you do have to see it all to make progress.” – The Independent

Hidden Figures is out now.

Hidden Figures. Janelle Monaé as Mary Jackson, Taraji P Henson as Katherine Johnson, and Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan in