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President Donald Trump signed into law the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act on Friday.
Engineers Christine Darden and Mary Jackson, as well as mathematician Katherine Johnson and computer programmer Dorothy Vaughan were awarded Congressional Gold Medals.
Vaughan and Jackson, who passed away, were both awarded posthumously.
A fifth gold medal was granted in honor of all women who contributed to NASA during the Space Race.
Making the impossible possible
They played pivotal roles in World War II aircraft testing, supersonic flight research, and sending the Voyager probes to explore the solar system. They also helped land the first man on the moon in 1969.
Democratic Senator Kamala Harris from California, one of the people who introduced the bipartisan bill, called the women “pioneers” and an inspiration to black women across the US.
The four trailblazers paved the way for women of color to make history in fields including science, math, and technology.
The women who made history
Vaughan died in 2008.
Darden, now 77 years old, started off as a data analyst at NASA’s Langley Research Center before she became an aerospace engineer. She wrote over 50 articles on aeronautics design and her work led to discoveries which “revolutionized aerodynamics design.”
Jackson, NASA’s first black female engineer, worked as an engineer for 21 years before becoming the Federal Women’s Program Manager where she was committed to improving “the prospects of NASA’s female mathematicians, engineers, and scientists”. She died in 2005.
Jackson, Vaughan, and Johnson were featured in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.” The book was adapted into the film “Hidden Figures” in 2016.
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