Katherine Johnson by Lezariah J.

 

Many people faced very hard challenges in life. Some people overcome those challenges, and some don’t. Many of us use those challenges and get better at something they didn’t do right before. One person’s name is Katherine Johnson, and she overcame segregation, discrimination, and sexism. She is known for being a human computer.

To begin with, when Johnson was young, she loved to count things. Katherine Johnson graduated from college and began to work for NASA. There, she had to deal with sexism. According to “Sho is Katherine Johnson?” Katherine wanted to work for NASA but as an African- American woman people at first prevented her from doing so. This shows that the men at NASA weren’t being fair because she was a female. Also, it was very unusual for women of any race to have degrees in mathematics, and women were not allowed to attend meetings with the male engineers and scientists. Katherine was always smart and strong and didn’t let sexism hold her back! She eventually attended these meetings.

Not only did she go through that, but also she had to deal with segregation. In the story “Who is Katherine Johnson” by NASA, different races were separated in many places and activities. Each race had different water fountains and restrooms. When Katherine graduated from college, the U.S was still segregated. The U.S was probably segregated when she went to college. In the source  https://www.forbes.com/sites/jumokedada/2020/03/25/5-lessons-on-resilience-from-the-legacy-of-nasa-pioneer-katherine-johnson/ Katherine was confident in her abilities. “She was able to skip many grades which led her from graduating high school at 14 years old.” That is a big accomplishment for her time.

In addition, she also went through discrimination. In “Who is Katherine Johnson,” African- Americans were rarely able to have jobs in mathematics and science. Johnson overcame racial and gender discrimination. She also gave back. The NASA article, Johnson was a trailblazer in STEM. She was calculating the paths for spaceships to travel. ”Johnson successfully helped put an American around in orbit around Earth.” Her calculations helped put astronauts on the moon. She retired from NASA in 1986.

To end these thoughts, Katherine overcame several adversities, like sexism, discrimination, and segregation. She didn’t let any of that stop her from being who she is today. She was a strong and smart woman and didn’t let race or gender hold her back from her opportunities. She passed away at 101 years old.