Dorothy Vaughan was a computer programmer who made important contributions to the U.S. space program. She was relatively unknown until 2016, when a book by Margot Lee Shetterly—Hidden Figures—drew attention to the contributions of Vaughan and other so-called West Computers. The book was made into an acclaimed film (2016).
What was Dorothy Vaughan’s job?
Dorothy Vaughan performed complex computations and analyzed data for aerospace engineers, work that was later essential to the success of the early U.S. space program. She was the first African American manager at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which later became part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Why was Dorothy Vaughan significant?
Dorothy Vaughan’s employer, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was segregated, and black employees were forced to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities. Amid these conditions, Vaughan was promoted to lead the West Computers in 1949, becoming NACA’s first black supervisor and one of its few female supervisors.
In December 1943 she started working for NACA’s West Area Computing unit, a group of African American female mathematicians who were considered “human computers,” performing complex computations and analyzing data for aerospace engineers. The West Computers, as the women were known, provided data that were later essential to the success of the early U.S. space program. At the time, NACA was segregrated, and black employees were forced to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities. Despite these conditions, Vaughan was promoted to lead the West Computers in 1949. She became NACA’s first black supervisor and one of its few female supervisors.
Vaughan served as head of the West Computers until 1958, when NACA was incorporated into the newly created NASA, which closed the segregated facilities. Vaughan and many other West Computers then joined the NASA Analysis and Computation Division, a group made up of men and women of all races. By then, the space program had begun using electronic computers, and Vaughan became an expert at FORTRAN, a computer programming language used for scientific and algebraic applications. She retired from NASA in 1971.
Barack Obama: 2008 election night rallyPresident-elect Barack Obama waving to the crowd at a massive election night rally in Chicago's Grant Park on November 4, 2008. With him are (from left) his daughters, Sasha and Malia, and his wife, Michelle.
Who was the most celebrated Black explorer of the Americas?
Estéban, who traveled through the Southwest in the 1530s.
What was the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation?
It declared that all enslaved people in states in rebellion against the United States as of January 1, 1863, were to be free, making the Civil War a war to end slavery.
What was the Harlem Renaissance?
A cultural movement in the 1920s centered in New York City, characterized by a flowering of African American creative talent in literature, music, and the arts.
What was the impact of the Great Depression on African Americans?
African Americans were the first to be laid off from jobs and had an unemployment rate two to three times that of whites. They often received less aid than whites in public assistance programs.
Who was the first African American to win a Nobel Prize for literature?
African Americans, one of the largest of the many ethnic groups in the United States. African Americans are mainly of African ancestry, but many have non-Black ancestors as well.
African Americans are largely the descendants of enslaved people who were brought from their African homelands by force to work in the New World. Their rights were severely limited, and they were long denied a rightful share in the economic, social, and political progress of the United States. Nevertheless, African Americans have made basic and lasting contributions to American history and culture.
Inside the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center (formerly the DuSable Museum of African American History)A discussion of the DuSable Museum of African American History (now the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center) in Chicago, from the documentary Riches, Rivals, & Radicals: 100 Years of Museums in America.
At the turn of the 21st century, more than half the country’s more than 36,000,000 African Americans lived in the South; 10 Southern states had Black populations exceeding 1,000,000. African Americans were also concentrated in the largest cities, with more than 2,000,000 living in New York City and more than 1,000,000 in Chicago. Detroit, Philadelphia, and Houston each had a Black population between 500,000 and 1,000,000.
Names and labels
As Americans of African descent reached each new plateau in their struggle for equality, they reevaluated their identity. The slaveholder labels of black and negro (Spanish for “black”) were offensive, so they chose the euphemismcolored when they were freed. Capitalized, Negro became acceptable during the migration to the North for factory jobs. Afro-American was adopted by civil rights activists to underline pride in their ancestral homeland, but Black—the symbol of power and revolution—proved more popular. All these terms are still reflected in the names of dozens of organizations. To reestablish “cultural integrity” in the late 1980s, Jesse Jackson proposed African American, which—unlike some “baseless” color label—proclaims kinship with a historical land base. In the 21st century the terms Black and African American both were widely used.
The early history of Black people in the Americas
Africans assisted the Spanish and the Portuguese during their early exploration of the Americas. In the 16th century some Black explorers settled in the Mississippi valley and in the areas that became South Carolina and New Mexico. The most celebrated Black explorer of the Americas was Estéban, who traveled through the Southwest in the 1530s.
The uninterrupted history of Black people in the United States began in 1619, when 20 Africans were landed in the English colony of Virginia. These individuals were not enslaved people but indentured servants—persons bound to an employer for a limited number of years—as were many of the settlers of European descent (whites). By the 1660s large numbers of Africans were being brought to the English colonies. In 1790 Black people numbered almost 760,000 and made up nearly one-fifth of the population of the United States.
Attempts to hold Black servants beyond the normal term of indenture culminated in the legal establishment of Black chattelslavery in Virginia in 1661 and in all the English colonies by 1750. Black people were easily distinguished by their skin color (the result of evolutionary pressures favoring the presence in the skin of a dark pigment called melanin in populations in equatorial climates) from the rest of the populace, making them highly visible targets for enslavement. Moreover, the development of the belief that they were an “inferior” race with a “heathen” culture made it easier for whites to rationalize the enslavement of Black people. Enslaved Africans were put to work clearing and cultivating the farmlands of the New World.
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Of an estimated 10,000,000 Africans brought to the Americas by the trade of enslaved peoples, about 430,000 came to the territory of what is now the United States. The overwhelming majority were taken from the area of western Africa stretching from present-day Senegal to Angola, where political and social organization as well as art, music, and dance were highly advanced. On or near the African coast had emerged the major kingdoms of Oyo, Ashanti, Benin, Dahomey, and the Congo. In the Sudanese interior had arisen the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai; the Hausa states; and the states of Kanem-Bornu. Such African cities as Djenné and Timbuktu, both now in Mali, were at one time major commercial and educational centers.
With the increasing profitability of slavery and the trade of enslaved peoples, some Africans themselves sold captives to the European traders. The captured Africans were generally marched in chains to the coast and crowded into the holds of slave ships for the dreaded Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean, usually to the West Indies. Shock, disease, and suicide were responsible for the deaths of at least one-sixth during the crossing. In the West Indies the survivors were “seasoned”—taught the rudiments of English and drilled in the routines and discipline of plantation life.
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