Movie prompts math scholarship at LeMoyne-Owen
When Annie Marie Garraway watched the movie “Hidden Figures,” she thought about the impact her math professor, Juanita R. Turner, had on her.
“Seeing the movie and reading the book made me think that she ( Turner) saw hidden figures in me,” Garraway said.
The “Hidden Figures” movie and book — which tell the true story of three African-American female mathematicians working at NASA who played an important role in the space race during the 1960s — inspired Garraway to donate $25,000 to create an endowed scholarship fund at LeMoyneOwen College. The Juanita R. Turner Memorial Scholarship is named after Garraway’s former math professor, who died Dec. 4, 1980.
“I wish to donate $25,000 to create an endowed scholarship fund in Mrs. Turner’s memory, and also for the scholarship fund to be open to accepting contributions from others. And, I wish for the disbursements from the fund to benefit math majors at LeMoyne-Owen College,” Garraway said in a letter to Brenda Gaines-Ollie, LeMoyne-Owen College’s vice president for institutional advancement.
Garraway attended S.A. Owen Junior College as a freshman and wanted to major in engineering, but Turner motivated Garraway to take a different path.
“My initial plans for college were to study engineering. I had no idea what engineers did, but I had read some college catalogs and thought that subject was for me,” Garraway said. “At S.A. Owen Junior College that year, I could not study engineering. At that time they did not even offer calculus, but Mrs. Turner taught college algebra. She recognized my abilities and offered to work with me after class, providing additional instruction and exercises beyond what she could provide in class.”
Turner’s assistance and guidance prepared Garraway when she transferred from S.A. Owen Junior College and prompted her to major in mathematics.
“As I took more math courses, I realized how much I enjoyed the challenges of doing math, so I majored in math and minored in chemistry,” Garraway said.
Garraway transferred to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, earned a doctorate in mathematics and had a successful career at AT&T Labs and Lucent Technologies.
After Garraway left the junior college, it later became part of LeMoyne-Owen College.
The depiction of race relations during the 1960s and presence of influential African-Americans in “Hidden Figures” also interested Garraway.
“There were two aspects that shone through both the book and movie for me. First is the portrayal of the brilliant mathematician Katherine Johnson and the second was the pretty accurate portrayal of the racial climate at that time and how it affected the African-American ‘computers’ who worked at Langley,” Garraway said. “The truth is that, while Mrs. Johnson was extremely gifted, there were hundreds, if not thousands of talented African-American men and women teaching math and science across the South, teaching kids like me in those segregated schools and colleges. We may not have realized it, but we knew those ‘hidden figures.’”
Garraway is excited to find out who will receive the Juanita R. Turner Memorial Scholarship and hopes the scholarship will shine a light on mathematics.
“I hope others will contribute to the fund underlying this scholarship and perhaps other former students of Mrs. Turner will remember her dedication and decide to contribute,” Garraway said. “Then I hope that in some small way this scholarship will highlight the enduring importance of mathematics, both as an endeavor of its own and as a building block for engineering, science and technology.”