Before Katherine's family lived in White Sulphur Springs, her father owned a very large farm and log farmhouse in Oakhurst, which was located close by. Their farm was called Dutch Run. Katherine's father had only a sixth-grade education but he was an industrious man. Katherine believes that a white man must have purchased the land their house in White Sulphur Springs was built on, as Colored people could not buy land at that time. Education was very important to Katherine's father, which was why he moved the family into town.
In 1926, the Coleman family moved to Institute, West Virginia so the children could attend the West Virginia Colored Institute. When Katherine's father was unable to find employment he was forced to move back to White Sulphur Springs where he would live apart from his family for the next eight years, until all four Coleman children had graduated college. His family would visit during summers and holidays.
Katherine entered high school at age ten and did well, often acing courses. During the 1920's Katherine and her siblings all worked at the Greenbrier Hotel, built at the local thermal springs. The hotel catered to wealthy white clients, although some amenities were available to the Colored population later in the evening. Horace, Charlie and Mr. Coleman worked as bellmen, while Margaret and Katherine worked in the valet shop, unpacking guest's trunks and pressing their clothes.
In 1932, Katherine graduated from high school and entered college. Because she had the opportunity to practice her French with the chef at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, Katherine thought she might like to major in French. However, Dr. William W. Schieffelin Claytor, head of the mathematics department urged her to reconsider. Katherine decided to major in both French and math. He also encouraged Katherine to become a research mathematician, and to that end he developed classes just for her, including a class about the geometry of outer space.
Katherine graduated from the Institute which was now called West Virginia State College, in 1937 with degrees in mathematics and French, summa cum laude. She graduated ahead of her brothers, Horace and Charlie, both of whom she thought were "slow learners". They were most definitely not!
Katherine then went on to teach math and music at Carnegie Elementary School in Marion, Virginia. Public schools at this time were racially segregated. "White Virginians thought that if Colored people became educated, they would challenge the existing social order, which was rooted in White supremacy - the belief that White people were genetically superior to non-White people, including Colored people." Marion, Virginia was predominantly white and Katherine knew that "the threat of violence was never far off." It was in Marion that Katherine met Jimmie Gobles, a tall graduate from Lincoln University in Missouri. Katherine and Jimmie were married November 9, 1939.
Very soon after, during the summer of 1940, Katherine moved to Morgantown where she would begin graduate school at West Virginia University. Katherine was one of three Colored students chosen to integrate the school. However, Katherine didn't return to West Virginia University in the fall but instead returned to teaching with Jimmie at Carnegie Elementary.
In December 1940, Katherine had the first of three daughters, named Joylette. Constance was born in April, 1943, and Katherine (Kathy) was born in April, 1944. Katherine and Jimmie moved to Bluefield, Virginia in 1947, where they both taught at Tazewell County School. After losing their house in a fire, Katherine and Jimmie moved to the Newport News-Hampton Roads area. Katherine's sister Margaret and her husband had told Katherine about a secret government project on the Virginia peninsula where Colored women were working as "computers". While Jimmie got a job as a painter at the Newport News shipyard, Katherine decided to try for a position as a mathematician at NACA (the forerunner of NASA). Eventually, Katherine was offered a job as a computer at NACA. It would be the beginning of a stellar career in the space industry, where she would have a profound impact on the Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle missions, and blaze a trail for women in science and engineering, especially African-American women.
Discussion
Reaching For The Moon is the inspiring story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American woman mathematician who led an extraordinary life. Johnson wrote her story in the hopes of inspiring young people to "reach for the moon in their own lives", no matter their circumstances. For Katherine Johnson, those circumstances were systemic discrimination based on race and gender.
As a young Black girl, growing up in racially segregated America during the 1920's and 1930's, Katherine experienced many serious challenges. Racial segregation and systemic racism meant fewer opportunities for African-Americans who struggled to obtain an education. When her father was born, about half of African Americans were unable to read. Katherine explains why White Americans were against educating Blacks and how the difficulty in obtaining an education made her father highly value an education.
Katherine writes how "...Colored people strove to educate themselves - organizing, creating self-help groups, running for office, fighting to change laws, founding schools, and so on." Katherine's parents valued a good education so much they sacrificed to ensure their children were able to attend schools. Katherine notes of her father, "Because his own education had been prohibited, his children's was extremely important to him....Like many other Colored people of that era, he saw education as the pathway his children could follow to escape indignities and dangers, large and small." Repeatedly her father moved his family near good schools and even endured years of separation from his family, so that his daughters could receive a good education.
Katherine traces her own path through the years of the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and the Space Race of the 1960's, set against the backdrop of the struggle by African-Americans for racial equality, desegregation, the right to vote, and the right to an education. She describes how schools for Black children were often deprived of funding, and the teachers poorly paid but how this situation also resulted in highly qualified teachers and well-educated Black students who went on to make significant contributions to America.
In Reaching For The Moon, Katherine describes the contributions she was most proud of at NACA and its successor, NASA. She attributes her success to her unprecedented habit of asking questions of NASA engineers, so she could understand their thinking. This was to ensure her calculations were correct. It was something the other "computers" had never done, because it was expected that the women computers would not question the men engineers. "Having enough information to do my work accurately was essential; so I just ignored the social customs that told me to stay in my place. I would keep asking questions until I was satisfied with the results...Quietly the quality of my contribution began to outweigh the arbitrary laws of racial segregation and the dictates that held back my gender."
It is evident from Reaching For The Moon, that Katherine Johnson was a very gifted mathematician whose contributions were significant in both the Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. But she was also a woman of determination, perseverance and courage. Her life was not without tragedy, as she lost her beloved first husband, Jimmie Gobles in 1956 when she was thirty-eight years old. Katherine passed away in February of 2020 at the age of one hundred and one.
In Reaching For The Moon, Katherine repeatedly mentions the advice her father gave her, "You are no better than anyone else, but nobody else is better than you." It was advice she would remember all her life, giving her the self-confidence in a world that saw her as unequal. Katherine Johnson's autobiography is a must-read for girls and teens of all backgrounds, but especially those from marginalized communities and those contemplating a career in science.
Book Details:
Reaching For The Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson
New York: Atheneum Books For Young Readers 2019
248 pp.
248 pp.
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