The U.S. Senate passed a resolution to honor NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. The nation owes her a debt of gratitude.

A true American hero died on February 24, 2020 at the age of 101. Her name is Katherine Johnson. You will remember her from her story as it was told in the movie Hidden Figures. She was an extraordinary woman and an extraordinary human being. At a time in our nation’s history when a career in engineering and any profession was almost impossible to achieve for a black American, this black American woman was at the center of America’s successful space program. That program put a man on the moon and that woman used her skill in mathematics to compute the path to get there. Not only that but she was called upon to check the computers to make sure that the computer’s calculations were correct.

Given the history of our nation it is almost impossible to overstate the significance of this extraordinary life. We attempted to put it into context in an article posted on this site on January 19, 2017 entitled Unpaid Labor Contribution, Hidden Figures, and the Saving of America. There we draw attention to the collective contribution of so many nameless and faceless Africans in America who built the foundations of our nation. Like Katherine Johnson they deserve to be honored.