Women of ‘Hidden Figures’ honored

WASHINGTON — They were called “human computers.” Now, the street outside NASA’s District of Columbia headquarters honors their legacy as the women who helped send humans to the moon.

District officials joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and others Wednesday to rename the 300 block of E Street SW “Hidden Figures Way.”

“Hidden Figures” is the 2016 book by Margot Lee Shetterly about female African American mathematicians who helped send humans to the moon. They worked for NASA in Hampton, Virginia, and struggled in the racially segregated 1960s. Their story was widely popularized through a 2016 Oscar-nominated film by the same name.

Bridenstine said the agency is “celebrating those figures that at the time were not celebrated.”

Cruz, whose mother graduated from Rice University in the 1950s with a degree in math and helped NASA compute the orbits of Sputnik, was struck by the film’s themes. He said he watched the movie with his two daughters, ages 8 and 11, and they spoke afterward of the discrimination, sexism and other challenges the women faced.

When Bridenstine was confirmed last year as NASA administrator, Cruz said they needed to honor the female mathematicians who worked on the Apollo mission.

Cruz filed the Hidden Figures Way Designation Act in August with three other senators and reached out to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson. D.C. lawmakers passed the Hidden Figures Way Designation Act of 2018 in December to rename the street and “honor the historic women scientists and mathematicians who contributed to NASA’s mission despite adversity.”

The senators and council members worked together to honor Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson — whose families were present at Wednesday’s ceremony.

Now, when children see the street sign, they’ll ask what it means, Cruz told the crowd gathered for the unveiling Wednesday.

It’s a story “about the unlimited human potential of all of us,” he said. “A story about women who helped take mankind to the moon, who helped conquer the greatest challenges of an era, and your story, and your mom’s story, and your grandma’s story are going to inspire generations after generations of kids and, in particular, little girls. Little girls who may be told at school they can’t do something.”