Katherine Johnson: African American Culture

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Katherine Johnson is one of the most influential people, not only for the African American culture, but for the generation of female millennials. Katherine Johnson has shown that not even discrimination can interrupt people from reaching their full potential. Because of Katherine’s investment in the STEM field, America has changed and developed in important subjects, such as math and science.
Katherine Coleman was born on August 26th, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to Joylette and Joshua Coleman. Growing up, counting was a passion. “I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up the church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed… anything that could be counted, I did.” Katherine told NASA. At the age of 10, Coleman attended high school, however her family drove her 120 miles every day in order to provide the education needed. By age 18, Katherine graduated from West Virginia …show more content…
At the time, NACA was changing into NASA, but Johnson was still allowed to keep the job she had. During May of 1961, America completed its first flight to space with Alan Shepard, with Katherine’s trajectory analysis. However, the most famous story is NASA’s orbital mission with John Glenn. This mission was very stressful for everyone who was working on the mission, especially Glenn. Astronauts weren’t comfortable with allowing machines calculating the space shuttle’s coordinates after falling back onto Earth. This was because the machines were known for shutting down and making errors. Before takeoff, John told engineers, “Go get the girl”, according to Katherine. The task that Katherine was to accomplish was answering the same questions the machines did and approve or disapprove the space flight. Katherine approved the flight and the mission marked a significant point in American
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