Public Library welcomes Hidden Figures author Margot Lee Shetterly
Peacemaker staff reports / September 22, 2017
Margot Lee Shetterly
Shetterly is the author of the New York Times bestselling book and inspiration for the blockbuster movie, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. The book was selected as this year’s One City, One Book title and is the basis for a variety of programs at the library and throughout the community this fall.
Hidden Figures is the story of the Black female mathematicians who worked behind the scenes at NACA and later NASA at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in Hampton, Virginia. Referred to as “human computers,” Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden were vital in devising aeronautic calculations that propelled the United States as a leader in the race to travel into space.
The book and movie also touch on issues of race, gender, science, innovation and more. It highlights the unheralded contributions of women and minorities to American innovation. Shetterly’s father was also among the early generation of NASA engineers and she was raised in Hampton, Virginia. In 2010, on a visit home, her father told her, “A lot of women around here, Black and White, worked as computers.” Thanks to that conversation, Shetterly wanted to know more and as she began her research “the spark of curiosity soon became an all-consuming fire.”
Shetterly is also the founder of the Human Computer Project, a digital archive of the women’s stories. She graduated from the University of Virginia and is a 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow.
A book signing will follow each presentation. To find out more about the exciting programs and resources at the Greensboro Public Library, visit www.greensborolibrary.org.
Shetterly at GTCC
Guilford Technical Community College’s faculty has selected “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race” for its annual All-College Read. The New York Times best-seller will influence a number of academic and student activities, including a visit by its author, Margot Lee Shetterly, on Thursday, Sept. 28, noon at the Joseph S. Koury Auditorium, GTCC Jamestown Campus, 601 E. Main St., Jamestown, N.C.
