Yesterday, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, I never thought  my wife and I selected a movie, “Hidden Figures” that t this movie was “MLK(Martin Luther King Jr)” jewell. A diamond in the rough, that does not need much polishing. However fifty five years ago when the United States was in their infancy of space exploration, and very much trailing the Russians(Sputnik), three Afro-Americans were  finally able now to have their story told.

Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson were employed at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia in as data processors center in the  early 1960’s. It was a time even at a governmental office, washrooms were segregated for both “Colored” and “Whites”.  However it took Katherine Johnson, a mathematical genius, to not only show our great country, that a woman, but an Afro-American  could  change the course of Space Exploration. She was able to do the much needed mathematical calculations that even at the time when IBM’s first main frame computer couldn’t do, but like Rudolph “the red nose reindeer” , her Santa, a young  thirty-nine year old Astronaut named John Glenn, who was waiting to blast off on the Mercury Capsule in 1963, when “Mission Control” saw that there was an error in the calculations for re-entry back to earth. They asked John Glenn if they should scrap the launch, he said, get Katherine, “The Girl”, if she can confirm the right calculations, then it is a “Go”! What a Go it was, or should I say it was the start of a “Goal”, to someday to step on the Moon, “One Giant Step For Man Kind”.

So as I celebrate this Monday, “Martin Luther King Day”, as a national holiday, I am also celebrating this day to give thanks just three of of Dr. King’s many millions of daughters, of course Mrs. Katherine G. Johnson, who incidently had the the honor of having her name bestowed for The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia , Mary Jackson(04-09-1921-02-1–2005), spent thirty-four years at NASA, and was Nasa’s first African American female engineer, mathematician and aerospace engineer, and Dorothy Vaughan(September 20,1910-November 10,2008, who was an African-American mathematician, who worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics(NACA), the predecessor to NASA. In 1949, she was the first African American to be head of personnel at the NACA. At her twenty-eight career at The Langley Research Center, her specializations were in flight paths, the Scout Project, and FORTRAN computer programming.

As the movie “Hidden Figures” came to its ending, a few welcomed tears made me realize that Doctor King new his calling whether it was in life or well after  his death, why not he had no doubt especially on his birthday, his “Hidden Figures”. Black and Lives do matter, you can count on it.