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Speaker 1: The woman who integrated NASA accidentally, I didn't know. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back Know. It alls to another episode of the most

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Speaker 1: anticipated podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network, especially in February,

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Speaker 1: entitled I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I'm your

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Speaker 1: host Be Dittes, and I do the football PA announcing

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Speaker 1: for Winston Salem State, my alma mater, and for FAM.

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Speaker 1: You for go rams and go wrap. We'll kick off

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Speaker 1: today's episode, as we do every episode, with three of

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Speaker 1: the most useless facts you'll never need not a day

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Speaker 1: in life. Up first, John Glenn, a white man, the

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Speaker 1: first American to orbit Earth. He refused to fly until

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Speaker 1: a black woman checked the computer's math by hand. Your

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Speaker 1: second useless fact, that same black woman calculated the trajectory

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Speaker 1: for Apollo eleven's moonlanding the flight path to the moon

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Speaker 1: without a computer. And your third useless facts. When Apollo

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Speaker 1: thirteen nearly killed three astronauts, that same black woman's backup

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Speaker 1: calculations brought them back home alive. Now, would you like

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Speaker 1: to meet such a phenomenal woman? Do you know what

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Speaker 1: her name is? Because I didn't. I didn't know. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. So, Dickie,

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Speaker 1: when people talk about NASA desegregating, they love to make

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Speaker 1: it sound clean, like they had a memo and had

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Speaker 1: a meeting. Somebody stood up and said, hey, we choose.

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Speaker 1: That's not how it happened. NASA's integration was messy, quiet,

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Speaker 1: and unintentional. I introduced to you Catherine Johnson. She was

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen eighteen in White soft for Springs, West Virginia,

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Speaker 1: and she was so good at math that she started

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Speaker 1: high school at ten years old. This story made me

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Speaker 1: look at my thirteen year old daughter in shake my head.

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Speaker 1: The problem was her county didn't offer public school for

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Speaker 1: black children past eighth grade, so her pop moved the

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Speaker 1: entire family one hundred and twenty five miles so that

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Speaker 1: baby could go to school. She graduated college at eighteen,

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Speaker 1: summa cum laude with degrees in mathematics and French. That

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Speaker 1: made me look at my nineteen year old freshman at

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Speaker 1: Livingstone College and shake my head. Later, Catherine would become

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Speaker 1: one of three students and the only woman that was

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Speaker 1: chosen to desegregate West Virginia University's graduate program. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three, she heard that NAKA, which was the precursor

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Speaker 1: to NASA, was hiring black women as computers. He applied

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Speaker 1: and got the job. But here's the thing. She was

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Speaker 1: hired to be invisible. See, black women worked in the

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Speaker 1: segregated West Area computing section. Separate bathrooms, separate cafeteria, separate office.

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Speaker 1: They were even called colored computers. And Catherine Johnson decided,

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Speaker 1: you know what, that wasn't gonna work for her. She

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Speaker 1: started asking questions and meetings where women wouldn't even allow.

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Speaker 1: When somebody told her, excuse me, women can't attend briefings,

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Speaker 1: she responded, is there a law against it? Where there

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Speaker 1: was it? So she walked in anyway. In nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: she became the first woman to receive credit as an

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Speaker 1: author on a research report at NASA, unheard of. But

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Speaker 1: the moment that changed everything came two years later. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two. See, NASA was preparing to send John

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Speaker 1: Glenn in the orbit, the first American to circle the Earth.

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Speaker 1: They had these brand new, fancy IBM computers. Those was

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Speaker 1: calculating his trajectory for Glenn didn't trust them. IBM computers.

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Speaker 1: They were new ed glitches, they froze. So Glenn made

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Speaker 1: a request get the colored computer to check the numbers.

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Speaker 1: And he was talking specifically about Catherine Johnson. He wanted

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Speaker 1: her to run the same calculations as the IBM, but

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Speaker 1: by hand on a desktop calculator. And she did it.

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Speaker 1: And that's when Glenn said, if she says they're good,

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Speaker 1: then I'm ready to go. Let that sink in. The

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Speaker 1: astronaut who became a national hero, trusted a black woman

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Speaker 1: and the segregated South more than he trusted a million

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Speaker 1: dollar computer. Glenn flew, he orbited, and he came home safe.

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Speaker 1: And Catherine Johnson, she kept calculating. She calculated the trajectory

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Speaker 1: for Apollo eleven. She told them where to send the

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Speaker 1: rocket so it would land on the Moon. In nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: when Apollo thirteen's oxygen tank exploded and three astronauts were

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Speaker 1: stranded in space, her backup procedures and return path calculations

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Speaker 1: helped bring them right on home alive. She later said,

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Speaker 1: everybody was concerned about them getting there, we were concerned

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Speaker 1: about them getting back. In twenty fifteen, President Obama gave

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Speaker 1: her the presidential Medal of Freedom. At the ceremony, he says,

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Speaker 1: no one knows that John Glenn wouldn't fly unless Catherine

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Speaker 1: Johnson checked the math. She died in twenty twenty at

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Speaker 1: one hundred and one years old. NASA didn't integrate because

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Speaker 1: it was ready. It integrated because excellence made segregation impractical.

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Speaker 1: Katherine Johnson didn't ask permission. She calculated, and I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't either. I didn't know, Jo. Yeah,