Brylee Waggoner

ENGL-1130

February 8, 2024

Reflection First Draft

Color Means Nothing

As years go on, the view of African Americans is different but will never be changed

fully. In the movie Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi in 2016, a very descriptive life of

three African American women is given. Their struggles of working in a field known to have a

majority of not only male, but white workers is shown very well.

When heading to their new jobs at West Area Computers, Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary

start off with very bad luck of their car breaking down. Thankfully Dorothy is able to fix their

car and a police officer kindly escorts them to their new job. Upon arrival, no one believes these

women are there for the mathematician jobs they claim they are.

As their jobs go on with time, Katherine is assigned a job with the Space Task Group.

She is immediately faced with discrimination due to her skin color and gender. This does not

stop her though. Katherine is able to solve the equation needed to send John Glenn into orbit on

the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission.

While Katherine is sending men into orbit, Mary is attempting to go to school. She has

always dreamed of being an engineer. Due to the culture at the time, this is not the easiest thing

for her to do. This does not stop her. With the help of one of Mary’s coworkers, she is able to

petition the court to allow her to attend the night classes at an all white high school. After her

schooling she became the first African American female engineer at NASA. This is a great

example of how determination can over power others opinions.

 Dorothy takes it upon herself to learn programming. She sees that the use of IBM

computers could harm the jobs of her coworkers so she is doing what it takes to prevent this.

Although she is faced with struggles, she doesn’t give up. All her hard work pays off for

Dorothy. She became the first African American supervisor in her department. Her knowledge

also helps her transition her coworkers to working with the new technology.

These three women prove the standards wrong. Dorothy, Mary, and Katherine are all

very successful and smart in their departments. They have many huge accomplishments that no

one else was able to do before them. Many hardships were thrown at them, but that did not stop

them from working for what they believed they could do.