As African American women working among white men in the 1960’s, Kathrine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn had to fight against gender and racial challenges to reach their goals.
Kathrine Johnson broke the racial and gender barriers in September of 1960 by becoming the first woman to put her name on a report. In 1960 Kathrine and John Shopinski worked together on equations to launch, track, and maneuver a spacecraft on an orbital flight that would end with the spacecraft landing at a specific position. She provided the mathematical backbone for America's first spaceflight in May 1961 and America's first orbital mission in February 1962. The equations in the report were mostly Katherine’s, but Pearson, her supervisor who “was no fan of women”, told Shopinski to finish the report and put his name on it. Instead Shopinski told Katherine to finish the report with her name on it. Kathrine ended up being the first woman to put her name on a report, and would go on to put her name on 25 reports throughout her career.
Mary Jackson broke barriers by becoming NASA's first woman engineer. While working in the Supersonic Pressure Tunnel with engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki, he encouraged her to get the qualification to become an engineer. The classes she needed to take were offered through the University of Virginia at the all-white Hampton High School. She had to petition the courts to be allowed to attend the classes. She was able to attend and complete the classes to become an engineer. She broke the gender and racial barriers to become NASA’s first Afican American women engineer.
Dorothy Vaughn broke the racial barrier to become NASA’s first African American supervisor. In 1949, the white supervisor of the West Area Computers became ill and was forced to quit, so Dorothy was chosen to be the temporary head of the section. Dorothy remained as the acting supervisor for two more years before being given the official position. Then in January 1951, Dorothy Vaughn was appointed head of the unit, breaking the barrier of race becoming a leader and advocate for women.