Hidden Figures

In 1969, Katherine Johnson attends a sorority conference in the Poconos while also watching the Apollo 11 astronauts make their way to the moon. This is a momentous occasion in US history, and Katherine herself, as a worker at NASA, helped make it happen.

Black activists challenge the Apollo mission, wondering why so many resources have been spent on sending white men to the moon when poor black families in some parts of the country can barely eat. Other black people wonder why they are not represented among the astronauts or in mission control.

The TV show Star Trek and the black female character Lieutenant Uhura help black Americans feel more closely connected with the Space Program. At one point, the actress who plays Uhura decides she wants to quit the show to go back to acting on Broadway. At an event for the NAACP in Los Angeles, Martin Luther King Jr. himself tells her that he is a fan and that she can’t leave the show. “We are there because you are here,” he tells her. Nichols is frustrated by King’s order at first, then decides her role on the show is important and that she won’t resign.

Back in the Poconos, Katherine feels grateful to Dorothy Vaughan and to the other women and teachers who helped her get to this point. She thinks about the challenges ahead and imagines plotting a course to Mars, followed by a grand tour of the outer planets. “Once you took the first step,” she thought, “anything was possible.”