Hidden Figures Book Report

In the novel Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, the central problem was that African Americans were being segregated and discriminated against. They didn’t have the same job opportunities, couldn’t use the same bathrooms, or attend the same schools. Throughout the book, this became less and less so, however many times African Americans had to fight for their rights, such as when Christine Darden participated in the sit-ins mentioned on pages 161 or 162, or when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream speech,” mentioned on page 186. Over time, people began to see that no matter the color of your skin, we are all human beings. Segregation slowly diminished, and places like the Langley Laboratory became more integrated and started to hire more and more African Americans. The biggest lesson I learned from this story is that if you work hard enough, anything is possible. This idea is repeated many times throughout the book, such as on pages 74 and 75 when Dorothy Vaughan became the first African American women to become the head of a section. It is also seen on page 157 when Levi Jackson, Mary Jackson’s son, became the first African American boy to win the Hampton Roads area’s soap box derby. Even on the final page of the book, this idea is stated yet again. “Why should flying a person to Mars be any less achievable than sending a man into orbit around Earth or landing a man on the moon? One thing built on the next. Katherine Johnson knew: once you …show more content…
Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan deserve to be recognized for their contributions to NASA and the U.S., and it is so inspiring to learn about how hard they worked to gain both gender and racial equality. Hidden Figures is an amazing novel, and I am glad that the author chose to make the story of these great women