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Babes in Bookland
A podcast celebrating women's memoirs, one story at a time!
Babes in Bookland
Moon Math and Quiet Confidence // Katherine Johnson's "My Remarkable Journey"
How far could you go if you believed in yourself?
Katherine Johnson’s memoir My Remarkable Journey is more than a space-age origin story; it is a study in how confidence, education, and community can shape history.
Early on, the memoir reads like a love letter to learning. Katherine’s parents, one generation removed from slavery, push her toward college with sacrifices and a father’s mantra etched in memory: “You’re as good as anyone, but no better.” The book also shows how mentors matter. She highlights the teachers who saw a research mathematician before she did, a one-student class in analytic geometry of space, and a culture of high expectations that asked Black students to be twice as good. It’s inspiring and sobering. Proof that talent needs access, and access is a policy choice.
We talk about “painful progress,” how proximity humanizes, and why respectful, fact-based dialogue changes minds more reliably than outrage. Through grief—losing her first husband—Katherine keeps moving, anchoring herself in work and family. Her moon-shot math resembles a life philosophy: aim where the future will be, not where the present stands.
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We’ll see you in February 2026 for more author chats, book club conversations, and a new episode type: bite sized babes—where I review memoirs and offer my favorite takeaways!
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Link to this episode’s book:
My Remarkable Journey
Other links:
A Brief History of Black Hospitals in America
Transcripts and chapter markers are available through apple’s podcast app—they may not be perfect, but relying on them allows me to dedicate more time to the show! If you’re interested in being a transcript angel, let me know.
This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.
Theme song by Devin Kennedy
Special thanks to my dear friend, Kate!
Xx, Alex
Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!
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Hi, thanks for tuning in to Babes in Bookland, your women's memoir podcast. I'm your host, Alex Franca, and my wonderful friend Kate is back to discuss Catherine Johnson's My Remarkable Journey. If you want to hear the extended version of this discussion, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon, and you can further support the show by purchasing some of our cute merch from Tea Public. Let's go to the moon.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, Kate.
SPEAKER_02:Hi. Katie, how did I pick another Catherine memoir for you? Oh my gosh, you're right. Same names. It's kind of crazy. I didn't do that intentionally. I picked this book for us because maybe it was just in I know, it's just one of those weird things. How strange. I love it. I might have to keep the ball rolling. Any other good Catherine memoirs? No, that'd be really fun. I loved learning about the history of NASA. Was NASA a big part of your childhood? Are you also like really stoked to be from Houston because of NASA, or is that just me?
SPEAKER_01:So I feel like it wasn't a big part of my childhood. I live very close to NASA now. Okay, okay, okay. And so it's become a lot more of a like a fixture in my life because I'm nearby. I see it all the time, you know. So it's really it is a special part of Houston. I think it's very cool. It was one of the selling points of Houston that I tried to pitch to my husband when we moved back here. It's the Space Center, hon. Like very cool. And they do really fun events there too. Like in the holidays, they put this amazing Christmas light display up all throughout, and you walk through the whole center, and it's it's beautiful. That's really cool.
SPEAKER_02:I also love Hidden Figures, which is so Catherine Johnson was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson. I know we've talked about our love for that movie before. And I'm I'm just in awe of people who get math. I mean, Catherine just like she was a little human calculator. How are you with math, Katie?
SPEAKER_01:Hmm. Well, not so much my thing. I I will say I think I was okay at math up to a point. And then once it got, you know, past about ninth or tenth grade, I just that was not my thing. When I was trying to go back to get my master's degree, one of my prerequisite courses was statistics. Uh-huh. And I was trying to like be really efficient and cheap about it. So I took a distance learning course, which distance learning at the time didn't even have an instructor. I mean, there was technically an instructor, but all you did was you had a textbook and you taught yourself. So I I was teaching myself statistics and I just barely skated by to get the B that I needed in that class. But that was the moment where I realized like I have zero natural math ability.
SPEAKER_02:Sounds like my nightmare. Yeah, it really was. My friend Priscilla, who's been a guest on the show multiple times. I know you know her, Katie, and I went to high school together and we took trigonometry pre-cal. I think it's it's like the same thing, pre-cal. The teacher was known for giving you two-day tests.
SPEAKER_00:So we would spend day one of the tests copying the questions down, take it home, solve it all, and then come back.
SPEAKER_02:Now I feel like kids have to show their work, the steps that they, but back then, if you just got the right answer, they just assumed you knew what you were doing. Oh my gosh. Never knew what I was doing.
SPEAKER_00:I know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that was the worst part about my statistics course, is it was sort of the same situation. It was like open book for the tests, and the only thing I had to take was it was the final exam that killed me because it was not open book, and I was like live proctored by like a live. So I mean the language of this proctor probably heard me say under my breath. It's so bad.
SPEAKER_02:Thank God we've moved past that. How are you with your son's math? Are you able to kind of help him if he has questions? Does he need help at this point?
SPEAKER_01:Thank the Lord. My son is so naturally academically like he can do far more than I can. Okay, okay. The other day, and I picked up his carpool and he was talking to a friend of his about some math tests that they took, and I couldn't even recall the concepts. Like he was describing some formula, like volume times level. I guess it was science, but it was math science. Sure. I couldn't even recall what he was talking about. I was like, oh my gosh. So he's beyond me at this point.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so what did you think of My Remarkable Journey?
SPEAKER_01:I really loved it. I loved how she she told her story, but she also wove it into this like beautiful kind of fabric of all the historical events of the time. And you really got to see her journey, but like in the context of also just that historical time period. So it's very educational as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I was surprised by how educational it was. I wasn't expecting it to be that. And I completely agree. I love that she also wove in her family's histories and like the people that she came into contact with. It wasn't just like, oh, I met this guy. It was like, let me stop and give you his backstory and and how he got stuck here because at this time in history, people weren't able, you know, black people weren't able to go further. But instead of that holding him back and having him hold me back, he said, I could only go this far, but I'm gonna set you up to go further than me. And it was a really beautiful thing to read about. Yeah, definitely. And I did, I found myself, this was a it was really interesting for me because I found myself smiling throughout reading most of the memoir. I truly enjoyed learning about her life and her voice, even though she talks about some really horrific things that black people had to face during this time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And we will dive a little bit deeper into the Jim Crow era and segregation throughout our discussion. One thing that I thought was really interesting that I'll bring up really quick was how President Hoover appealed to Americans to reduce their consumption of many food items so they could send more to the soldiers fighting in World War One. And there was a slogan, food will win the war. And he even implemented Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays. And I had never heard of any of this. I had never heard of that either.
SPEAKER_01:And I wonder if something like that. And you went to that would fly today. So I wonder if something like that would fly today. Like, I would the public be receptive to that or not? I just don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Could you imagine us all coming together for the greater good of people and deciding together, I'll sacrifice something because it means that I'm helping someone else do better than me or do well? It's not even that. Like these guys, I would like to think that if we did have to send a group of people across the world to fight what was happening in World War War and then later in World War II, I would like to think that we could come together. I think war can unify people in that way. But you're right, it's really sad to think about there are ways that we could be doing something similar to this right now.
SPEAKER_01:And we're just not. We live in such a different time in terms of how like the speed of information, how information is disseminated. People know so much more. There are more perspectives shared so widely that to some extent I wonder would it just be harder to get everybody aligned because the you have the option to be exposed to so many different perspectives and possibly take one that is not, you know, not even rooted in the truth, which is really scary.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know. No, it's true, but I do think we see examples of people coming together when it matters most. I mean, I've been really proud of the protests that are happening in our country, they're the peaceful protests that are happening. I mean, just what recently happened with Jimmy Kimmel. We we canceled our Hulu and our Disney Plus. Yeah. You know, we were like, this is one small thing that we can do to feel like we're sticking up for the first amendment in the constitution. Like, what? So um, yeah, I think that as people, we have a lot more power. I mean, even on the flip side, when people were upset about what Bud Light did, right? They did something about that. So I think we just can't forget, and really Catherine's memoir helped remind me like there is a power in the people that we have that yeah, certain people in power don't want us to have and try to make us feel like we don't have, but like we do. And here are some recent examples of that, you know? Right. Yeah. So yeah, let's let's get into more of this. So My Remarkable Journey was released in 2021, and this is her dedication to my husband and parents, who were always a great source of inspiration and support, and to young people seeking to make a world better through the field of science. Quick topics. Catherine's memoir was co-written with her daughter Joylet Heilick and Catherine Moore, another Catherine, and was actually finished and published posthumously. This is also not Catherine's first go at writing her story down. She released an autobiography in 2019 titled Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of a NASA Mathematician, which is for younger readers. So for any parents out there who want to share this incredible woman's story with their kids, it's recommended for ages 10 and up, and you can probably get it from your local library. Wow. Okay, another quick topic. What hidden figures got wrong? I was really I loved that she included this. She did talk about hidden figures as much as I wanted her to.
SPEAKER_01:I know, I okay, by how detail specific she was throughout the whole book. I mean, just the number and amount of detail she as a person, especially at, you know, the later age that she wrote the book, was able to recall. I feel like the 75% that she quoted as being, you know, what was the match between hidden figures in the book probably did bother her. Yes. I mean, I don't want to like, you know, invoice feelings on her. I don't know. But she's just so detail-oriented that I feel like that would really bother me.
SPEAKER_02:She didn't mention whether she liked her portrayal, like by the actress at all. But she went to the Academy Awards. Yes. Which was very cool. And yeah, I'm maybe it was just kind of one of those things. She's a very humble person. She was a very humble person that that came across in her memoir. So maybe she just felt uncomfortable talking about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, and or she seems so um just focused on her work and kind of focused on, you know, what do I need? What do I want to do? And maybe not so wrapped up in whatever, you know, the media or whoever wants to take her story does with it. And so maybe she was just like, oh, this is, you know, this is outside of me. It's kind of outside my control.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, I agree. In the foreword written by Dr. Yvonne Darlene Kegel, she recalls Catherine mentioning that she didn't wear glasses until much later in life, and that the movie made it seem like she was really anxious during the moon launch. But actually, Catherine Johnson knew her numbers were right.
SPEAKER_00:I love that.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. She was like, um, no, I was fine. And the in the body of the memoir, Catherine writes that 75% of the film was accurate, like you just said, Kate, but quote, I never rushed back and forth across the Langley campus to use a segregated bathroom. While there were indeed separate bathrooms for white and black employees for much of my time at Langley, I always used the one closest to my workspace. There were humiliating times when black employees had to walk a long distance long distance to a different building to find a designated bathroom to relieve themselves, but I didn't follow the rules. I figured I was as good as anybody else, so I just refused them. Was I able to get away with it because of my fair skin complexion? That's probable. I know some of my white counterparts weren't quite sure of my race, but as I saw it, that was their issue. I never tried to hide who I was. And this idea of her just knowing herself, her value, knowing that when people were racist, that was their problem and not hers. These themes show up time and time again in her memoir, and we'll discuss them more.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just incredible sort of mental fortitude for her. Yes. I also wonder if it was related. I mean, there's a there's a benefit in being so bright that you're basically indispensable, which it sounds like she eventually was. I don't know if maybe in the beginning she wasn't, but at some point people know, you know, we actually cannot lose her. Yes. So regardless of what, you know, whether there were colored bathrooms or not. You know, she just was needed.
SPEAKER_02:She was needed. And I also do wonder there's a confidence about her because she does know her numbers, she knows her stuff. There's a little bit of maybe that fake it till you make it. Yeah. There's the idea that like you could just walk into a party and act like you belong there and no one will question you about it. Yes. I kind of wonder if there was a little bit of that going on too. But I like your point. I think that that probably played into it a little bit. To round out the quick topics before we we dive deeper or shoot higher. I don't know. Sometimes I'm trying to like throw a pun into these, but whatever. Who would you want to play you in the story of your life, Kate?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, this is a hard question. Because, you know, the actresses that like I like and look up to are could not play me because they're like at this point, they're older than me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know. It's tough. I know.
SPEAKER_01:I really like Natalie Portman. I would enjoy that. She'd have to dye her hair blonde, but she has the same energy as you. I'm trying to think if there's anybody else. I don't know. That was just the first one that came to mind for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_02:It's kind of just like who's your favorite actress? Yeah. It's like who you do. Yeah. Yeah. Let's move further into Catherine Johnson's memoir. So we'll start with her childhood. She was born on August 26, 1918, joking that she's older than sliced bread. So cute.
SPEAKER_00:Which came out in 1928.
SPEAKER_01:So she's which also, again, was very educational because I'm like, wait, really? There was a time when it didn't exist? Like, what? Of course that makes sense because it's like, oh, it's better than sliced bread. Like, that's why that's a saying.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, I had never thought about it before. These things that you take for granted. And so I'm a sourdough maker and I'll make a loaf like every week or so. That I got into it during COVID. Cliche as hell when I do. Yes. So I've had my starter since 2020. She's going strong. Her name is Gloria. Every time that I bake a loaf, I love it. But when it comes time to slicing the loaf to put in the toaster, I'm just like, oh, it's so annoying. It is so much easier to buy pre-sliced loaf of sourdough at the store. Yeah. Because it just gets all like jagged and kind of like crooked. Um, I think we need to get you a better knife, Alex.
SPEAKER_01:I know. I'm not, I'm not about this at all. Like, I don't I've I've had the same knives that are completely dull for the last like 15 years.
SPEAKER_02:So back to Catherine. She was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. No cars at this time. Yeah, that's wild. Ford had released the Model T, um, but obviously only extremely wealthy people could afford it at the time. So she and her family got around via horse and buggy.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02:Again, wild to think about. This woman just passed away within the last five years. Yeah. Crazy to think about how close we are to that. And it makes you wonder what the heck are our kids or grandkids? They're gonna look at us and be like, oh my God, they drove on the ground.
SPEAKER_01:Or we had to actually physically like turn a wheel to make the car move.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. Oh, it's crazy, crazy. She writes a lot about the changes that she witnessed in her lifetime, cars and highways that easily connect us and also the way that our society progressed. She writes, I was born at a time when women couldn't vote. My people were called colored and treated as second-class citizens, and white lynch mobs terrorized our communities throughout the nation, particularly in the South. So even in my most vivid imagination, I could not envision the life I would live. Her parents, especially her father, quote, recognized the value of education and made great sacrifices to assure that my sister, two brothers, and I were able to graduate from college. Education was their hope. Oh, I love this. Catherine continues, she tells us, My parents were just a generation removed from slavery, a time when it was illegal for our people to learn how to read, and breaking the rules for a slave could result in a severe beating or even death. When daddy was in school, colored children could go only as high as sixth grade. He wanted to be sure that his children got the education he had been denied. How important was education in your household? And were your parents first generation to go to college?
SPEAKER_01:Um, no, I think both my grandparents, both sets of grandparents, like on my dad's side and my mom's side, uh, went to college. I don't think my grandmothers finished. I don't think either of them finished school, but they like met their husbands and then got married, but they at least started college. But yeah, my and both my parents went to college. So yeah, it was just sort of by the time I got around, it was just expected that I would go. I went to, you know, like a college preparatory school. So it was just sort of an expectation and definitely very valued.
SPEAKER_02:My mom was first generation. She worked and put herself through school, and I'm fairly certain my dad was too. I vaguely remember hearing that my grandfather got into college but wasn't able to go for some reason. So yeah, I do feel like with our generation too, there was just the expectation. You went to high school, you went to college, that that's just what you did.
SPEAKER_01:The expectation, but also the sense that it was like a guarantee, which I think we've maybe learned is not so much the case anymore. But um, it was an expectation because there was traditionally so much, you know, definite monetary salary value in going to college. Like you were pretty guaranteed to get a good job and be able to make a good living if you went to college during our parents' era. But right, that has changed a bit.
SPEAKER_02:That has changed a little bit. That's true. But my parents definitely always fostered a love for education and fostered a curiosity in me. My mom would always, when I would be reading a book, she she did this as well. She would keep a list of words that she didn't know, and she would go to the dictionary and look them up as she was reading. Yeah, just this idea that like you don't know it all. You're not born knowing it all. You have to learn it. So I feel really appreciative of that. And I have a very curious child, and my mother-in-law gifted her a dictionary for Christmas. And we've been, you know, we'll stop and read other books, but like we've been slowly working our way through the dictionary. And I'm just like, Yes, love learning, love learning. And my biggest thing that I tell her is like, it's okay if you don't know. That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a really important lesson for sure. Because that's my biggest pet peeve.
SPEAKER_02:People who are know it all. So I'm just like, bitch, you don't know it all. Oh, don't you hate that when you're talking to someone and be like, I know, I know. And I'm like, no, you don't know. I'm telling you this brand new information. You've never heard this before.
SPEAKER_01:Breaking news.
unknown:Stop it.
SPEAKER_02:Um, okay, so back to Catherine. Her father also did a tremendous job of teaching her from a young age that although the world they were living in would try to make her feel less than. This is at a time when Jim Crow still existed. Black people were made to sit in the back of buses, use separate water fountains, etc. She wasn't. I love the little nuggets of wisdom that her father gave her. And she titles the chapters, a lot of those little nuggets. Yeah. And what an important one. Yes, this is my favorite one. You're as good as anyone in this town, he said, peering down at my curious little face, but you're no better. It's so simple, but it's such a highly effective thing to instill in a young person. You're encouraging humility and confidence at the same time, reminding them to hold their head high without looking down on others. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And the fact that he, you know, as somebody who'd been through his experiences, it sounds like he was only, I wanted to say she said her her grandparents were slaves. So he was only one generation removed. Yeah. And yet that he didn't have potentially the intern internalized shame or, you know, sense of lack of self worth or something. Yeah. That he he had enough self worth to. Own that lesson and teach that lesson and pass it on to her. Oh my gosh, it's just beautiful. I mean, that's just incredible.
SPEAKER_02:It really, really was. You're right. I didn't even think about it like that. I just was that a wise man. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Do you have anything that your parents have taught you that you really feel like shaped your view of yourself or how the world worked?
SPEAKER_01:I feel like both my parents have like their little sayings that they've said over the years. But the the ones that are coming to mind, my mom has always said, never let anyone steal your joy. And I do feel like I really do live by that. Like I think I internalized that lesson. And then my dad has always said something to the effect of like focus on the journey, ignore the noise. Kind of that similar idea, I think, to what she was taught, or maybe I don't know if she was explicitly taught it, but internalized it. Like this sense of just focus on what you want, focus on what you're doing, and block out all the extraneous stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And she does that in in two ways. She does that, she blocks out like the way society wants her to feel about herself and like focuses on her work. But then there are times where she actually has people around her being like, no, you have to continue your education. And she's like, No, I want to start a family. I want to do what's best for me. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So cool. I mean, she just really trusted that in her voice and those priorities and just went with it. Which is one of the reasons I loved this memoir so much.
SPEAKER_02:So much. And her father didn't just tell her this, right? He showed her, like you said, with how he lived his own life. Her mother also valued education. She had even attended a teacher training institute financed by northern churches in 1892. And she started teaching at 18. That was another big thing that I learned that women could really only go into teaching a big emphasis on like creating female teachers and then black teachers as well. Catherine writes about growing up on a farm, how her father raised animals and maintained a large apple orchard and grew an array of fruits and vegetables. She writes practically everything our family needed to eat off of and earn a living. Our parents only bought a few items at the store, including sugar, coffee, salt, and pepper. I'm trying to get back to this a little bit. I mean, look, once you once you can just like go to the store and buy a bunch of stuff, it's definitely easy. But my husband really got into gardening a couple years ago. We're at a rental right now, and so we just don't have the same like land set up. But when we were at our our home, he got really into it. And the joy and just it's the food tasted better when you walked outside. We had chickens. We could just go grab eggs. I made the sourdough. Like it was, I don't know, there is something to that way of life.
SPEAKER_01:My son really loves strawberries. And so a couple summers back, I planted strawberries in the backyard, like in pots. Yeah. But the amount of like time and effort and labor, and like honestly, even money that went into trying to take care of these strawberries to only yield like 10. Yeah. Was ultimately just like not really worth it for me. But I did enjoy the process. And I will say, I do think they tasted better. I don't know if it I was tasting my own labor, and so that's what made it taste better. A thousand percent. Obviously, check your zones or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You being in Texas, you could nothing survive pain than we do. Yeah, it's crazy. You can't survive our summers. No, I know, I know. My girlfriend had a greenhouse for a while in Texas. Oh, wow. That's kind of a cool idea. That's neat. So back to the memoir. When Catherine is two, her father builds them a new family home in town closer to their school. She writes so many wonderful things about her father, who really seemed to be a pillar in the community and her life. She's a self-declared daddy's girl. And then, okay, this threw me. She mentions his gifts. I was like, again, amazing. He had a gift of healing animals and humans. She writes, the word around town was if you had something wrong, go to Josh Coleman and he would take care of it. Removing warts was his specialty, and even white residents would make their way to her home. I wondered why so many people were getting warts.
SPEAKER_00:I was like, why are there enough warts happening for this to be his specialty?
SPEAKER_01:Must have been like just a widespread virus there, I guess. I don't know. This I thought was very interesting. Yeah. Because she's a scientist. You know, she's she is not somebody who deals in fantastical beliefs. She's somebody who deals in, you know, facts and figures. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, but she is also faith-based, right? Which in theory is maybe could be connected. Believing in something that you don't have facts and figures.
SPEAKER_01:I just thought it was an example of is she just believed in her father and it was so sweet. I was like, oh my gosh, she's like, she believed in the magic of her dad, which is oh, that's so sweet. I know. I know. And he really did seem like an amazing man.
SPEAKER_02:He really did. And people's warts went away. So who are we to like? Who knows? Who knows, y'all? Um, and we will circle back to his gifts later. In a moment that gave me goosebumps. Yeah. I'm tearing up thinking about it. Okay. Catherine also writes about her early love for math. She writes, I loved counting everything I saw. I always pushed myself to go higher and higher. Math just made sense to me, and I caught on easily even before I started school. When she's four, she sneaks to school with her brother and they let her stay. She can read and spell by this point, and she very quickly skips first grade, and then later she skips fifth grade. She's a smart cookie. There's a really reputable school, the West Virginia Colored Institute, which offered a high school education with an emphasis on vocational and teacher training. And Catherine's family decides to move closer to the school so all of the children can continue their education there after growing out the local elementary school. She writes, our family didn't have a home in Institute, nor did Daddy have a waiting job, but my parents had what mattered most: lots of determination, dreams, and hope. At this point, both of her parents are working at this very exclusive whites-only club called Greenbrier. Ultimately, after her father can't find work, her mother moves with the kids to Institute, and her father stays back to work and support both households. She writes, My parents' actions in those years spoke to me louder than any words they ever said about how much education mattered to them. They set the expectations high for my siblings and me. How could we do anything but work hard in school when our parents were working so hard to provide us with such an opportunity to be educated? So we talked a little bit about college meaning something a little bit different these days. Do you feel like this idea that education is an opportunity? Do you feel like we're losing that a little bit?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, but I feel like it's potentially, I don't know, misguided and or dangerous to believe it because it's like so many things. It's a it is a privilege ultimately. Even if it's become commonplace, even if it's for the last 20 years or so been accessible pretty much to everyone, it it can easily be taken away with just a few, you know, we're seeing that right now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Things that are being taken away from yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And even on down into like grade school, you know, elementary school, pre-K through 12, whatever, it's just some of the like school choice legislation could potentially impact the availability or quality of public education.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Who knows? You know, maybe not, but ultimately it's just something that I think we all have to really protect and be aware of and not, you know, just let go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. In fact, when you called it a privilege, that made me sad because it's a right. It should be a right for every single person in our country to get access to a proper education. And if we're a country who wants people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, then we have to empower them with the tools to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's what education does. And we see that play out in Catherine's memoir. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and there's a reason why black people were not permitted to go through education like her father was beyond sixth grade. I mean, we know how powerful it is. We know that it gives people more options and more power. I know. Something to think about.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I actually read this quote recently, and it's killing me that I don't remember where I got it from. I might have read it at the beginning of a book, but shame on me for not remembering. But it's from Malcolm Forbes, and the quote is education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. I love that. That's it.
SPEAKER_01:That's so great.
SPEAKER_02:That's also why I think people are trying to narrow the scope of people's educational journeys in our country by taking away, you know, like critical race theory and wanting to erase or whitewash parts of our ugly parts of our history. Right. It's because education not only empowers people, but it makes you more compassionate, it makes you more empathetic, I think, personally.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so kind of getting back to this idea of parents' actions speaking louder than words, what actions of your parents have spoken louder than their words? Doesn't have to be good actions, but you know, in Catherine's case it was, but you know what I mean. Gosh, that's a really hard question.
SPEAKER_01:I will say, you know, I don't think my dad has been sick like from work a day in his life. Wow. And when I was in school, if I got sick and was not going to school, it was it was a conversation. Like, why aren't you at school? Take some, take some. You're like, Dad, I'm vomiting.
SPEAKER_02:I'm vomiting right now. Like, you want me to go to school?
SPEAKER_01:So, um, and he's like, So your work, your dad's work ethic really just really um demonstrated very consistently to me over time. Yeah. Um, and then I think my mom has definitely walked her lesson that she tried to teach me about don't ever let anyone steal your joy, because she's had quite a lot of different traumatic events and things in her life, but she always just seems to bounce back and just find new things to bring joy into her life. She's I'm sure I mean, I'm not gonna say she hasn't had, you know, emotional ups and downs and things like that, but she just always seems to come out of it and keep fighting to find things to bring her joy, which is very helpful to see, you know, that modeled.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's a necessary, important thing to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, to see somebody. I think it's been helpful to see somebody, you know, you love and that you kind of relate to, go through traumatic, really challenging times and come out on the other side of it. It's just very helpful to know that you can do it too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that. Catherine also writes about the various teachers in her life who inspired and motivated her and who would continue to advocate for her long after she left their classrooms. She writes, as colored students, we represented more than ourselves, they said. They reminded us that we carried on our shoulders the hopes of our entire race. Our successes would help to dispel the lies of whites that our people were inferior. When we rose, so did our people. That's such a heavy weight for her to bear.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It feels unfair, but I think that she took it on willingly and was ready to kind of be a part of the movement that showed the world what black people were capable of, which is kind of crazy that they have to show us that, but a fine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And you can really see it in the way that she writes the book, like weaving in not only her own story, but so many other different stories of just prominent black figures who produced this beautiful work during the time. You can tell she feels or felt like she was part of a community, kind of raising up and not just on her own journey. Yeah. Which is very cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What's that saying? Uh, high tide raises all ships. Yes. Yeah. Something something like that. Yeah, we're gonna go with that. And she rises up to that challenge. Like you said, each day she learns more and more. She writes, I understood our teachers' desire to improve themselves continually. They had been taught and they taught us that to have a chance in this world, we as colored people had to be twice as good as our white counterparts. And I wanted to include that because Viola Davis and Misty Copeland both echoed that exact sentiment in their memoirs. These are more modern women. I mean, Misty Copeland is just a few years older than us. I think she's in her like her mid-40s. But it's just, it's, it's something worth noting. And I just wanted to note it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's still very much present. I mean, even just a few years ago, I talked to a teacher friend of mine who is black, and she's she echoed similar sentiments that you know she'd been working towards this promotion for several years and had seen, you know, other white counterparts promoted much more quickly, and she felt like she was working twice as hard just to get the same amount of recognition or promotion. So I think it's still very common.
SPEAKER_02:That's so frustrating. I mean, I think I think we saw a version of that um when Kamala Harris was running for president last year on the on the election trail. So yeah, she was being way more heavily scrutinized than anyone. Except maybe Hillary, a little bit. Yeah. Catherine doesn't just learn math and reading and science, she also learns piano and tennis.
SPEAKER_00:She is very well-rounded, you guys. She made me feel like I was not doing ever sleep. Did she ever sleep? I don't know. Maybe she's one of those like crazy people who only needs four hours of sleep to be like the most perfect version of themselves. I actually think that might be true.
SPEAKER_02:Only I could be the one of those people. I'm not that person. No. She writes, I suspect that too often the fear of failure keeps people from trying to learn new things and they miss out on wonderful experiences. Is there anything in your life, Katie, that you would like to try, but you're feeling a little afraid? You know what? I will have to say, like, you have always been, I don't know. I feel like you don't hold yourself back. Like you, you like got into UFC for one major, and then you were like, this isn't making me happy anymore. I'm gonna adjust. And then that wasn't making you happy, and you adjusted. I don't know. I feel like I'm so scared. I'm like, I've committed to this path. I'm pot committed, like I have to see it through. And you're just like, eh, life's too short. Be happy. I love that about you.
SPEAKER_01:I kind of feel like I do identify with Catherine Johnson, like in the sense that, you know, they were trying to, you know, and she was just like happy to no, I'm gonna go be a mom now. Like, yeah, for several years and just focus on that.
SPEAKER_02:The only race she was running was like against herself kind of delay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I have, I don't know, I guess I have this like unbearable drive to just do what I want to do. I love it. Sometimes I love it. Um, but I will say I have myself basically fully mapped out a novel that I want to write. Like I have all the characters, like chap plans for every chapter, plans for three books, like a three-book series. Like I have this whole plan, but I cannot, for the life of me, sit down to write it. And I don't know why. I sometimes I think it is that I'm afraid that I just I've never done it before. I don't really know how to do it. I don't even know what I would do with it if I ever finish it. So maybe it is kind of fear of the unknown. And like, so that that is like that's my goal. I'm going to write this book. I am going to do it. Yes, you are.
SPEAKER_02:I believe it. Can I recommend a memoir slash can how to? It's called Bird by Bird. Okay. I love that you have a memoir for everything. Girl, I try. Word by bird by Anne Lamotte. Okay. She is an author, and this her whole thing is just take it word by word, bird by bird. Okay. Okay. I like it. Got good friends who are rooting for you, and I want to read this series.
SPEAKER_01:I think I it's a matter of starting. I I think that really is. I just need to start it and then it'll flow.
SPEAKER_02:But I just sometimes I wonder too, if like you have the chapters all planned out because I I have an idea for a novel too. And it's like that first sentence feels important. Like, what if I start at chapter two and I come back to chapter one when I feel like I've got the flow.
SPEAKER_01:I also think I tire of things a little quickly. Like I burn really hot and then I burn out. And I think that's happening here a little bit. Like I'm so completely fleshed out with the ideas at this point. And I kind of have the story and the relationships and all this stuff figured out. So it's like the fun part is over for me. And now I have to actually sit down and do the work. And hey, good thing to recognize about yourself though, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay, honey, do the work. Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:When I think of like a fear of something that keeps me from a wonderful experience, the thing that comes to me is jumping out of a plane. But I don't think I'll ever, I just don't think I'll ever skydive. Have you ever skydived?
SPEAKER_01:No, and I 100% would never want to. Yeah. I'm the person who won't even go on roller coasters.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Well, I actually loved that growing up, but like since having kids, I don't know if it's just like a getting older thing or a having kids thing. But like I get I get vertigo on like a swing now. I'm just like, what the hell has happened to me?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, maybe that is getting older. Cause I haven't thought about that, but yeah, I get kind of nauseous on a swing. I've always had a little motion sickness though. So that's part of the roller coaster thing. But oh yeah. Okay. Bodies getting older just ruins everything. Boo. Although we're very grateful for it. Yes, yes. I love my body.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Um, okay, so back to the memoir. During this particularly horrific time in history, where Catherine writes about people being shot, hanged, and tortured in public venues all over this country, particularly in the South, for minor infractions or not at all, as entertainment for the participating white mobs. The civil rights movement starts stirring, and Catherine remains hopeful and optimistic as she moves through high school, graduates at 14, y'all. I know. In college, she's going to major in French. She adores the language so much that she starts calling her mother Mama instead of Mama. So throughout the memoir, she is Mama. So if you hear me say Mama today, people, it's not me, you know, just like being bougie after coming back from Paris this summer, which I did. Oh, I forgot about that. It's me just quoting Katherine Johnson, but I love Mama. My friend Lizzie calls her mom Marmy, our friend Lizzie because of uh little women.
SPEAKER_00:Marmy. Oh I think it's really sweet.
SPEAKER_02:She's told by a teacher in college. So she's majoring in French, like I said, she's told by a teacher to take math. And then another professor, Dr. Clayder, comes over and he's like, Yeah, you're taking this class. I'm creating it just for you. Analytic geometry of space.
SPEAKER_00:And Catherine's like, Great, yeah, sign me up. Sure. Okay. I would be like, oh my gosh. And she was the only one in the class. And yet he delivered the class as if it was full of people. I love that.
unknown:I know.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. See, Hidden Figures is a fantastic movie, but we need like a prequel of like who was Catherine Johnson during this time of her life because I would eat that. Oh my gosh. Me too. That's funny. Um, everyone around Catherine sees her potential and they're just so happy to prop her up. Their race might have limited her teachers, like I talked about earlier, their career potential.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:They're determined to help Catherine in ways that they couldn't help themselves. And she was their vision for the future, which I think is so beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:For hope and for change. And Dr. Clater specifically hopes that Catherine will become a research mathematician. When Catherine's like, I don't even know what that is. What's that? But okay. Sure, sounds good. Reading about these remarkable intelligent people who had to be relegated to teaching positions because of the color of their skin made me really wonder how much we held ourselves back as a society with our racist and bigoted and misogynistic beliefs. What could have been possible sooner? And what could be possible today if we had invited more people and more ideas to the table?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And yeah, I mean, and it's a relevant question for today for sure. Like, how are we limiting ourselves through closed mindedness? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. So So we're getting to NASA, but before then, she finds some love. Catherine writes that since she had no clue how to become a research mathematician, she looks for a more familiar job, teaching. There are still very limited opportunities for black teachers, but because she can also play the piano, she lands a job. She's recommended by a past professor. But it's in Virginia, Jim Crow, Virginia. I guess I didn't realize that West Virginia and Virginia were really like that's where the South and the Bible. Two sides of a coin, basically. Yeah. She writes, segregation certainly was not new to me, but I was not accustomed to such blatant, racist, and rude behavior. I refuse to let it bother me, though. Basically, she talks about remember she talks about being on the bus and like once they crossed the state line, all the blood back. I know. She's just one tough woman, like you've said, the mental fortitude. I was in awe of her ability to not be, to refuse to be affected by other people's hatred, as she can be, which is honestly pretty unaffected as far as I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01:And even thinking about like in terms of just her ability to persist and keep pursuing what she was doing, as opposed to internalizing that experience or that shame and having that impact her, you know, trajectory. I mean, she just it's like she had walls of steel around that heart and mind.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. So it's in Virginia where she meets James, and everyone called him Jimmy, and she very quickly grows very fond of him, and they decide to get married, but for some reason, her father refuses to give them his blessing, even though he likes Jimmy. And this really breaks Catherine's heart. It's really the first time that she and her father are not on the same page, and this is a pretty big thing for them not to be on the same page about, and he won't really give her an explanation, so that's also confusing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Catherine writes him a letter saying that she respects his decision not to give them his blessing, but she's marrying Jimmy anyways. Her father does pose in pictures on their wedding day, and Catherine writes that she will eventually learn why he refused to give her his blessing, but she doesn't tell us quite yet. So I'm not telling you. Even though Katie knows. I know. I know. Um, Catherine writes about the Supreme Court case Missouri ex rel Gaines v Canada. And I'm so sorry if I'm not like if there's like a way to lawyer speak this stuff. No, I don't know. So this case was a precursor to Brown versus the Board of Education, which is a case that I have heard about, which ordered states with schools for whites to provide the same in-state education for black students. And according to the ruling, states could accomplish this by allowing students of both races to attend the school or by creating a separate school within the state for black students. She also tells us that schools would kind of get around this by offering to pay black students tuition if they attended other schools. Yeah. That was wacko. I couldn't can't believe that. All of this leads to West Virginia University to become one of the first white universities in the South to begin allowing black students to attend its graduate programs. Now, Katie, you want to know what school was the first to allow black students to attend? Which one, Alex? It's the other USC University Alex. Yeah, University of Southern Carolina. At the time it was called South Carolina College, and it was called South Carolina College from 1873 to 1877. It's now University of Southern Carolina, the other USC. Don't make that mistake when you're trying to buy USC clothing. We're not the game hawks, we're the Trojans. And it was the only Southern State University to admit and grant degrees to African American students. 11 African Americans are known to have graduated with law degrees between 1874 and 1877. Wow. I know. Okay, and as we can all guess, Catherine is just one of three black people chosen to attend West Virginia University at this time. And the only woman. She would be the only black woman on campus. Yeah. And this is almost two decades before the infamous Little Rock Nine, where federal troops had to be brought in to protect children in Arkansas. Her mother says that she'll come with her to support her. So sweet. I know, I know. And fortunately, even though her advisor seemed like a loser, you know, he just needed to learn to respect her, I guess. And it seems like he did eventually. The white students that she encountered at WVU either like didn't seem to notice her or were welcoming. She writes about being both relieved and surprised. But again, did we learn that in hidden figures? Like, I don't recall.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't remember this part of yeah, I don't remember this being included in the movie. So that's like a pretty major mental. Yeah. I just can't imagine her going through that experience. And I mean, I'm sure that's part of why her mother came out with her, but that would be terrifying. I mean, the only woman in the whole school, and the only black woman in the whole school, and just what that you know could potentially incite against her, having the the courage, the bravery, the balls, whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_02:This lady, man. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And yet I don't think she really like that. I felt was prideful about that in any way, or or even like stage.
SPEAKER_02:She never even took the time to be like, it was hard, but I did it. She was just like, and I went. And this is what happened and who who I was. Yeah. Yes. Crazy. Yes. Yes. She does have to leave the program though when she discovers she is pregnant. Right. She writes that although she knew she'd be disappointing some, her love and excitement for her growing family helps her feel confident that she's making the right decision for her. Yeah. And her firstborn, Joy Lette, is named after her mama. So time passes, and she really gets into the details, but unfortunately, we don't have time to do that today. They welcome two more girls into the world, World War II happens, and some of her family is drafted to fight. Later, she'll write about losing her brother Horace to cancer at 38 because of his exposure to radiation. She writes, My brother had spent some of his prime years as a young man fighting heroically overseas for his country, yet in some places back home, he couldn't ride on the front of the bus or drink from a public water fountain of his choice. Just infuriating. I'm just like, here it is, y'all. Like this was disgusting. That as a country, we ask a man to fight to defend our freedoms, and we don't allow him those same freedoms on our soil.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I would just want to just educate yourselves. Back to her story. She and Jimmy work at the local school and they even teach their own children, which, like, I don't know if I'd want my parents as a team.
SPEAKER_01:No, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, those poor kids. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But also those very lucky children because they clearly had really good parents. But oh my gosh. They supplement their income every summer by working for wealthy white families. She writes about a time when Joylette is five and falls off a horse at the Belt, the Belcher's home. And even though he is influential, he cannot get her daughter into the hospital to be stitched up until the next day because the hospital was whites only. Just another example of what I was saying.
SPEAKER_01:Horrible.
SPEAKER_02:Just you're a doctor. You take a job. This is a child. Oh my god. She needed her lip stitched. Okay. It just makes you wonder about other children and the care that they were denied during this time. Right. And if it led to horrible outcomes. Oh, I'm sure it did, without a doubt. Of course, this number is impossible to determine, but even after desegregation, many hospitals that primarily served minority communities received less funding, leading to lower standards of care and higher morality rates. A 2021 study found that black patients had higher rates of COVID-19 hospital mortality because they were admitted to different lower quality hospitals than white patients. And I have that source and I will link it in the show notes for all of you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's common sense too. I mean, it happens in so many other areas, like in the school systems, you know, depending on how much tax revenue is coming in, a district may be better or worse. You know, it's it's just we see it everywhere. Money, money talks.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Catherine and Jimmy later move their family to Norfolk, Virginia Beach after their home burns down. They're looking for a fresh start. Plus, her brother and sister-in-law live there. This is where Catherine gets a job at NACA, y'all, the National Advisory Committee for Argonautics. Yeah. She's finally a research mathematician. She is assigned the West Area Computing Unit, the all-black female, all the all-black, all-female mathematicians. The majority of her work centered around reading film, running calculations, and plotting data on graph paper. Then she's sent to the prestigious flight research division. And again, she goes way more into all of this. And like we're skipping a little bit, but this is kind of where we're setting ourselves up for hidden figures in the movie. Here she works really well with the engineers. She writes, they were full of passion for their work and they liked that I was interested enough to ask questions. And Catherine has never been afraid of asking questions. She writes, I think the smartest people ask lots of questions. I've always loved being around smart people, and the only way to know what they know is to ask questions. How do you feel about asking questions, Kate?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I'm definitely a question asker. I'm like a front row sitter in class. I love that. I love that. And I was always asking questions. But I will say, like, asking questions that I sort of knew were not bad questions. I wonder to some extent, like she probably was asking the right questions that indicated her intelligence and like added a lot to the conversations.
SPEAKER_02:She was definitely following along on her own enough to write, exactly like you said, add to the conversation. Yeah. But I've always growing up, I did have multiple teachers at the beginning of every school year really kind of harp. There is no dumb question. I'd rather you get the clarity that you need to set yourself up for success. And that's what I like to instill in my daughter too. There are times where she kind of asks a question. And if it's something where I'm like, ooh, can you work that out on your own? Let's work it out. But if not, and then it's really funny because she'll be like, oh yeah, I think I knew that. And I'm like, it's okay to ask me. I ask for clarification all the time. Right. Also, because my brain feels like half the time it's like firing on only half the cylinders.
SPEAKER_00:I'm like, wait, hold on. What's happening here? What's going on?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Like we just talked about, because she has such a great working relationship with the engineers, she also feels empowered to point out when something is not quite right with the calculations, which I loved. She writes, I knew I had to handle such situations delicately. This was 1953, and many white women were still struggling with seeing women, particularly Negro women, in the workplace. But she continues, one of the things I've always loved about math is that the answer is either right or wrong, and right always prevailed. Accuracy was paramount in our line of work, and the engineers wanted to do good. So I never had much problem with them. They came to respect my questions and rely on my mathematical training and calculations. And she's right, there is a freedom in, you know, it's not like today where so many things are like, that's your opinion, dude. And it's like, no, no, the facts. But really, like two plus two equals four.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You can't refute that. It's just true. And also, these were really high stakes. And nobody wants to be the guy whose plane falls out of the sky because like your math was wrong. And later on the rocket. And it's just a beautiful way of existing, putting ego aside to serve the greater good. She's able to engage in conversation with them about current events and politics, it seems, to really help give them perspective and get them to understand her experience as a black woman. It's because they connect on this one thing, right? Right. And then they've respected her. They've got respect, yeah. Yes. So when she's able to say, Hey, did you know this is how I have to live my life? They're like, whoa, I didn't know that. And I think, you know, not that I can solve this like incredible problem that we have in our country right now, but when people are like, we can't talk to one another anymore, it's like, well, because we stopped respecting each other.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Somewhere along the way. I don't know how to get that back. Well, and respect, but also like humanizing her, you know, making her a real actual person with experiences and, you know, relationships and all these things that are going on in her life versus just this thing that represents something that you're unfamiliar with and finds foreign and, you know, don't understand. Other, yes.
SPEAKER_02:It's almost like when we start talking to people who look different than us, believe different things, live their lives differently than us, we understand that there are people who look different than us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And believe different things. It's kind of crazy, right? It's crazy how that happens. Oh, that's nuts.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so then unfortunately, the unimaginable happens. Jimmy is diagnosed with a brain tumor. And though surgery buys them some time, he ultimately passes away. And this is when we learn that Catherine's father didn't give Catherine and Jimmy his blessing because he saw Jimmy's fate when he looked into his eyes and he didn't wish his daughter to lose a husband so young. I got goosebumps when I read that part.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Catherine tries to live in this new normal. Obviously, she's destroyed by losing her love and the father to her children. And then on October 4th, 1957, Russia launches a satellite and everything heats up at work. America's in the thick of the Cold War at this time, and the department feels the pressure to get a satellite into orbit. It's time for Catherine to use her skills she learned back in college. Remember her solo class? The analytic geometry of space?
SPEAKER_00:Her class of one student. Well, it's her, baby. It's time.
SPEAKER_02:They can't make anything happen before Russia sends up Sputnik 2, this time with a doggy passenger. And it's a humiliating defeat for America, but they're quickly back in the space race after launching Explorer One and Vanguard 1 in 1958. On July 29th, 1958, President Eisenhower signed into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act. NASA is born. Okay, again, Catherine goes into way more depth about all of this. Um and I thought it was really fascinating to learn all the history. Yes. It's really cool. At this point, Catherine was working in the guidance and control branch of flight research division. And she knew she needed to be in the same meetings as all the engineers. So she had full access to all of the information. And she's like, um, okay, I want to go to the meetings. And they're like, oh, well, girls don't go to the meetings. And she's like, well, why not? Is there a law against it? She writes, in their mind, their practice was the law, especially since it never had been challenged. Yeah. But it just made sense for me to be there. Right. I was the one working on the equations. Wouldn't it broaden my perspective to understand firsthand the answers they were trying to get?
SPEAKER_01:And save everyone a lot of time because I'm assuming what was happening before was they were all having to talk in their meetings and then go tell Catherine all this stuff and relay her, you know, all these details to her. It's like, just let her be in the meeting. I know.
SPEAKER_02:And I love that it finally took a woman being like, uh, guys, let's just have me be in there. Yeah. Wouldn't that be easier? They're like, oh, but no women. But is it against the law? Oh, no, I guess it's not. Okay, cool. But then we're good. Okay, see ya. See you at the meeting. So yeah, of course she gets into the room. Yeah. I'm sure she did this in her like amazing Catherine way, too, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Now I bet she asked it in just like a really kind of bland analytical way. Like, well, is this, you know, a law or totally.
SPEAKER_02:I will say there is something to that, right? If you can take the emotion out of something and just present the facts. Present the facts and almost make it seem like it's their idea. Wouldn't it be easier for you? Yeah. If I knew the information so you didn't have to tell me so you could get back to work. Yeah, that would be easier for me. She writes, and the world, not just the world around me, was changing. As NACA prepared to soar into the space age, it too had to release the baggage of segregation. Segregation officially ends at Langley. That was the NACA campus, if we need a reminder, on May 5th, 1958. There's more positive change in Catherine's life. She meets James A. Johnson. Another James, but we call this one Jim. After dating a while, they get married, and this is how she becomes Mrs. Catherine Johnson. All right, it's time for the space race. She writes, I loved my job. I never played sick to stay at home. She's like your dad. Oh my god. I never needed inspiration to go to work. My work inspired me. I wanted to be there. I wanted to contribute. I've always believed that to do your best work, you've got to love what you do. Kate, do you love what you do?
SPEAKER_01:I do love what I do. I don't think that I would stand by, you know, wanting to be there every single day. And especially not in every single setting that I've worked as a speech pathologist, but um, I do love what I do. The work is meaningful and I feel good at it. Like I feel well suited to it. So I do think I do probably some of my best work in this role.
SPEAKER_03:I love that.
SPEAKER_02:So the focus at NASA turns to sending the first man into space, which significantly raises the stakes. Plus, it's not just getting someone into space, it's getting them home again. She goes into detail about how the astronauts were selected. There's a ton of great movies and television shows out there depicting all of this. And they're all white men, of course. She writes that one of the engineers she computes for, Ted, is tasked with figuring the trajectory of the flight path. And Catherine wants in on it. So she asks for it. And because most of the math included in the 35-page report is hers, she signs her name to it. Love it. She writes, when the report was published, it was the first time a woman of any race in my division had been listed on the research paper as a co-author. Man, I adored how she just like went for it. She was like, I deserve this. So I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01:I love that she went for it because she probably felt like if I put my name on this and somebody tries to challenge me, then they're gonna have to explain all my math to me.
SPEAKER_00:And good luck to them. And they can't. They can't. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But once again, America's bested by the Soviet Union. On April 12th, 1961, they send a man into space, Yuri Gagarin. Fortunately, NASA wasn't too far behind. On May 5th, 1961, we send Alan Shepard into orbit and he lands safely in the Atlantic Ocean. Catherine feels so much relief. She writes, I knew my numbers were right, but any small technical thing could have gone wrong and caused a disaster. We worked as a team behind the scenes, and no one's job was more important than the other. But now President Kennedy is like, oh great, let's get to the moon. And then electronic computers enter the scene, and then the Soviet Union sends another cosmonaut into space, and he orbits the Earth 17 times. Catherine writes, NASA once again was at the center of public criticism and doubt about its ability to overcome the opponent's dominance in the skies. But they're also ready to send John Glenn into orbit. She writes, as he went through his last flight simulation, he had a final request of the engineers. Get the girl to check the numbers, he instructed. Okay, we know this. We know this part from hidden figures. He wanted Catherine to verify that the electronic computer was right. Imagine now if we all would stop and be like, is this AI situation, is this computer right? Yeah. Let me like think about that for a second. Let me just manually check it. It takes her one and a half days, but she verifies it's correct. She writes Many have asked me over the years whether John Glenn even knew my name. Who knows? It didn't matter to me then. And it doesn't now. It was enough for me that I knew when he needed the girl, I was that girl. And I felt blessed to be her.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I'm disappointed that he didn't know her name. Or that he called her. The woman, you know, that fantastic mathematician. If you trust and respect her enough that she's the person, the one person who you're relying on to basically save your life, potentially. Yeah. You don't know that person's name. Like, come on. That's so true. I totally respect what she says, though. You know, ultimately, all she can do, all you can do is focus on your work and focus on what you're doing and being the best at what you do and being that quote unquote girl. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And to play devil's advocate, look, I'm not the best with names, number one. Number two, I also don't know what it's like to be preparing to go to be the first name.
SPEAKER_00:This is true. This is true.
SPEAKER_01:And I would like to give him yeah. I would like to give him the benefit of that doubt that he was like, I am freaking out here.
SPEAKER_00:I don't even know my name right now. Just get that, get that girl.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It just seems like Catherine, is she the perfect person who has ever existed? Potentially. And maybe, I don't know. I mean, I it doesn't really describe her interactions with him much in the book. So maybe she didn't have many firsthand interactions with him, and he just kind of knew more about her secondhand or something. Yeah. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I do wonder that too. I feel like in the movie, there's no I don't think I remember them interacting at any point. I need to rewatch it. I honestly really do love that movie. So Catherine gets some publicity for her part in getting John Glenn into orbit. One story even called her one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the present era. Joy Lett gets a job at NASA as a mathematician, which I thought was adorable. She writes, that showed me how important it is for young people to be able to see in the flesh a vision of what they could become. But it also showed me how critical it is for those with influence, parents, teachers, and mentors to help those who look to them for guidance to envision for themselves what may seem impossible. Have you ever had a mentor?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I would say my singing teacher growing up was probably my biggest mentor that I can think of. And yeah, I mean, hugely helpful in life, I think to have a mentor.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I hope to be a mentor one day. I would love to like be that hand that reaches out to help someone up. I don't know that I've found that for myself yet.
SPEAKER_01:I would love for my kids to have a mentor. Like thinking back about it, it was mostly just helpful to have somebody who was not your parent, who was sort of a objective outside source who you really trusted to like guide you through things that you maybe just didn't want to take to your parents, you know? There's so much benefit in that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, that's a really, really good point. Because sometimes like our parents can be right about things, but it's like the fact that they're our parents, we're like, yeah, listen to you. Back to Catherine. As she and NASA worked to get a man on the moon in the summer of 1963, quote, racial protests intensified in the South, forcing us as a nation to decide who we wanted to be. I feel like right now we're in a very similar sort of situation where we're being forced as a nation to decide who we want to be, what we want to stand for.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And it's like we're in just this big old identity crisis right now. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:But I actually found like an odd sense of solace in her talking about this struggle at in her lifetime as well, because it was kind of like, okay, we've been here before a little bit, like where hate spewed out from the cracks of society, where children were being beaten by policemen, where men were monsters to one another. Kennedy was shot, the Baptist church in Birmingham is bombed. And we worked hard to come together and we chose a different path for our country and for our society. And if we did it then.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think Angels in America uh has that term painful progress. Ooh. And I love the Angels in America reference, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. That's a theater kid track.
SPEAKER_01:The phrase has stuck with me for so long. You think back about some of what she lived through and you know, many eras back. Well, it was really only a hundred or so years ago. And I mean the 50s were only 70 years ago. We've still got plenty of people alive today who lived through those times, who internalized some of the messaging and things from those times. So as we move forward little by little, eventually there are gonna be children who never like my my dad can still tell me about the black children who were bussed into his elementary school or middle school or something like that. At some point, there's gonna be a time when we don't have people who have those firsthand experiences, who it's like almost unconscionable that that could even happen. And so I hope I I like to think that every little bit of progress we make, you know, slowly moves us forward in that painful progress, as Tony Kushner so beautifully said.
SPEAKER_02:While I definitely see the beauty and the gift in what you're saying, it's also like, yeah, but there are children now who are like Holocaust deniers.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. Well, that's horrible.
SPEAKER_02:So it's kind of like, wait, what's the flip side of that? And that's why I think educating yourself and knowing our history is so important. So important. Yeah. So that when those people aren't there to give their anecdotes anymore, we still believe that it has happened.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That we can be on guard for because I do think it's it, I think it's in human nature. Like I don't think it's something that we'll ever really fully get away from this tendency to blame external things that are different from us or things we don't understand. Yeah. I think it's an inherent in the something in our psyche. I don't know. And maybe there's some level of being able to move the psyche forward as well through just education.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Different experiences. But um, I think it's something we're always gonna have to actively kind of fight against and protect against.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's definitely the path of least resistance, right? Like if it's their fault, then it can't be my fault. Right. If it's not my fault, then I don't have to do anything about it. Right. It it also reminds me of that quote, those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:She writes this, which I loved. She writes that President Johnson said, There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem, there is no northern problem, there is only an American problem. Catherine writes, I never marched, but my heart was always with them. I'd like to think that I did my part from the inside. Every time I did my job to the best of my ability and succeeded, just maybe I was proving to those who would discount women and negroes that we were just as capable as anyone else, if not more. And every time I pushed to go where no woman or negro had gone before and won, it was a victory for us all. Kate, how do you try to make the world a better place?
SPEAKER_01:Through my job, for one, you know, my job is basically a service-based role. So always trying to improve the communication of mostly children at this point for me. And their families, you know, there's a there's a big family education component and kind of teaching parents about whatever the disability is that their child has and how to help them adapt and live and participate in the world like anyone else. And and then also just like trying to be a good parent and raise my kids with, you know, the values that I would hope that they would have um when they get older so they can contribute and be like kind little empathetic souls in the world. Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_02:What about you? Well, this podcast is definitely one way that I'm trying to just anything that I can do to amplify and echo the incredible woman that we discuss. And even you guys, my friends, you all bring such beautiful pieces of yourselves and wisdom and thoughts and just ways of viewing the world. I think we're a small but mighty, mighty machine over here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, honestly, every time we have one of these, I feel like I grow a little. Like I feel like I learned something either about you or myself, or you know, and I love the books that we've read so far.
SPEAKER_02:Hopefully, that makes me really happy.
SPEAKER_01:I really love it. I feel like with technology and just the way we're all in our phones now, and you know, yeah, it's like there aren't as many opportunities or places to have these kinds of like meaningful, really deep conversations. So it's just it's always refreshing every time. And it motivates me to try to like seek out those conversations just throughout my day-to-day and not just get kind of caught up in the superficial.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You know, the very first book that we did is sorry I'm late, I didn't want to come. And it's a it's about a woman actively seeking out friendships and like pushing past small talk into deep talk. And it's it's a great book, it's a great episode. And I find myself just trying to connect with anyone that I can. Yeah. Cause I'm with you in in today's age where we do feel so disconnected, and I think that's something that's led us down this path. It's just like, how can I continue to show up and be human every day with the humans around me?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I I love these conversations with my friends. Yeah. So thank you. Back to Catherine. Through all of this, Catherine and the team at NASA work to launch the first Apollo flight. It ends in tragedy. Takeoff is delayed, but the astronauts are inside and something malfunctions, and the rocket burns up and they're unable to escape. More tragedy. Dr. King is assassinated, Robert Kennedy is assassinated. Catherine writes, All I knew to do was burrow into my work. Her job is to compute the orbit to the desired destination and back and compute the launch window. But it's not easy because there are a lot of moving parts. Literally, the earth. She writes, the process reminded me a bit of what I was once told about hunting rabbits. A good hunter doesn't shoot right at the rabbit. You aim where you think the rabbit will be by the time your bullet gets there.
SPEAKER_01:Wasn't that such a great analogy? It was such a good analogy. But it also like the way she described the calculation process reminded me of like how I feel about word problems generally in math, which is like anxiety, immediate anxiety. Like, I don't know. I've never been good with word problems, which is weird because I'm like a language person. Like I'm a speech language pathologist. You'd think the word part would be my strength. It's crossing two different types of brain activities that I just oh.
SPEAKER_02:Which is why the tests love them and I hate them. Yeah. Catherine continues, we had to know where the moon would be by the time the astronauts arrived. Then I had to reverse the calculations to get them home. This time I had to consider how far the earth has rotated. It's too much for me.
SPEAKER_00:But God bless her for being able to do it.
SPEAKER_02:I would say throughout her memoir, she does a really good job of simplifying really complicated things to where even I could understand and enjoy learning about it.
SPEAKER_01:I really wonder what it would look like if she were to just write or would have written a book about like her life, but just in no way simplified any of the math. No one could read it. No one could read it.
SPEAKER_02:Catherine could have read it to herself.
SPEAKER_00:Joy Lett could have read it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And on July 20th, 1969, Catherine is surrounded by her sorority sisters. She writes a lot about her sorority sisters. I had to get them in so they outline for quote, what could become the most important moments of my career. Everyone applauds when they hear the eagle has landed. And Catherine is like, this is only step one, you guys. This is only step one. But when she watched Buzz Aldrin plant the American flag on the surface of the moon, she's overcome with pride. She writes, Pride in my country, pride in the astronauts, pride in all the men and women I knew who had worked hard behind the scenes to give our nation this moment. She can finally breathe easy when all three men land safely in the Atlantic Ocean. She continues to work for NASA for many years, seeing and being part of many exciting launches and also tragedies, including the Challenger explosion. And after 33 years, she retires and spends the rest of her life filled with lots of family time. She loses her daughter Connie. A movie is made about the pivotal moment in her life when she helped a man into space. And like I said at the beginning, she passes away before this book is finished. She lived 101 years. Incredible. And she truly had a remarkable life. And she truly was a remarkable person. Incredible. Unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01:I love how her lesson from her father was, you're as good as anyone else, but no better. Because in my head, I was like, she was a little better. Oh, you could be better.
SPEAKER_00:I made her better.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So this is just a little bit more of her legacy. When she's 97, President Obama invites her to the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. She has quite a few things named after her, including a building at NASA, the Catherine G.
SPEAKER_00:Johnson computational research facility. Can't even say that.
SPEAKER_02:There's a statue of her at West Virginia State University. And Dr. Cagel writes this in the foreword. After sharing that Catherine would have loved to have gone into space herself, but knew that it wasn't possible for her. Dr. Cagle's writing this about herself. As an African American who could aspire to travel to the moon, I am the embodiment of her dream. And to all those African American girls who will walk on the moon and land on Mars someday, we are her legacy. Love it. And her memoir has left a mark on me as well. Yeah. I like you, I am changed after reading these books, having these conversations. Catherine writes, if I've done anything in my life to deserve any of this, it is because I had great parents who taught me simple but powerful lessons that sustained me in the most challenging times. And I was blessed to receive the insight of many others along the way, some who guided me and others who walked through the tough terrain at my side. Beautiful. That was Catherine Johnson's memoir, My Remarkable Journey. What was your biggest takeaway?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I think my biggest takeaway, and we didn't touch too much on this, but when her first husband, Jimmy, passed away, the way she characterizes how she processed that, you know, was she pretty much just put her kids right back into school and like expected them to get on with it. And for the most part, herself as well. And I was like, I don't know. I as a parent, I've always kind of had that like lingering fear of what would happen if my husband were to pass away suddenly. Like, how would we go on? What would we do? And something about the way she described it, it it made me realize like that's exactly what I would do. And it it gave me a weird sense of comfort in knowing this would be absolutely horrible, but it's doable and people do it. And that's, you know, sometimes what you have to do is to just focus on, you know, yeah, whatever is ahead of you. And it seems like that's just what she did all along through her life is just keep moving, keep going. Armed with the knowledge that she had good people to support her. Yeah. I think and and she credits them.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she does a beautiful job crediting everyone, especially her parents. It was so sweet. In many ways, it felt like the book was sort of like a little love letter to her parents, the way that she talked about them and so special.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, makes you as a parent realize like I can really set my kid up for success just by supporting them and loving them and letting them know I'm always here for them. Thank you for bringing that up. Because you're right. I mean, it's so hard to outline these things to narrow them down to these eight to ten pages. I mean, I don't go over to any.
SPEAKER_01:No, there, and they're this one was so rich. She just had so many life experiences. Again, did she sleep? Did she sleep?
SPEAKER_02:Uh, yes. Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you all for listening out there. Share this episode with a remarkable woman in your own life. And Katie, this is our last episode of season two. It's our last episode of the year. And so we just want to say wherever you are on your own remarkable journey, we're wishing you love, laughter, peace, and prosperity. Just keep going. Find those people who support you because you have the strength inside of you. You really do. Guys, I'm taking a break in January, but don't worry, I've got a great campaign running on Instagram. There's a memoir for that that pairs memoirs with life experiences that you or someone you know may be going through. So make sure you follow us at Babes in BookLamb Pod on Instagram. And then I will be back the first week of February with some great shows. We've got some author interviews, some book club episodes, and I'm introducing a new format next season: 30-minute episodes, bite-sized babes, just me reviewing a memoir, letting you know my favorite takeaways, overall themes, anything that you need to know to add it to your TBR. Until then, take care, be well. Happy New Year. Bye, Katie. Love you. Yay, love you.
