‘Hidden Figures’ unveiled: NASA’s Washington headquarters to be renamed after Mary W. Jackson, the first Black woman engineer

With the Black Lives Matter movement ongoing, NASA is taking the initiative to rename their headquarters after the first female African American engineer, Mary W. Jackson.

With the Black Lives Matter movement that has been raging for a few weeks now, it seems the world is finally catching up in terms of acknowledging its rich African American heritage. The movement has been instrumental in bringing many African American figures into the limelight, and acknowledge their contributions to modern society.

Last year, in honour of the many contributions of all the previously marginalised people, NASA renamed the street outside their headquarters as the ‘Hidden Figures Way’. Just yesterday, Jim Bridenstine, a NASA administrator, announced that their Washington headquarters will be renamed after Mary Jackson, who overcame hurdles to become NASA’s first Black woman engineer.

In the 1940’s NASA was recruiting African American college graduates as ‘human computers’ for their first-ever attempt to venture into space. To no one’s surprise they faced racism and gender discrimination at work. In 1958, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which would later become NASA, hired their first African American female engineer, Mary W. Jackson.

The 2016 film ‘Hidden Figures’ sheds light on her contributions as an engineer. A few years after Mary Jackson’s death in 2005, she was awarded the ‘Congressional Golf Medal’ for her immense contribution not just to NASA but also to American history. The ‘Congressional Gold Medal’ is the highest award granted to civilians in the United States.

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