LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT
LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT
From
Allen D. Edge
Dear Mr. President,
Congratulations on your achievement. I know this is a very heady time for you. Any new job can be a little challenging. However, being President of the USA is beyond the imagination. I know a lot is coming at you real fast and you must have a hundred “number one priorities”. So I won’t waste your time.
I have recently watched a film entitled “Hidden Figures”. It is a bio pic about three remarkable African American women who were essential to the USA victories in the space race of the sixties. Below you’ll find a summary of their contributions.
Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an African American physicist and mathematician who made contributions to the United States' aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she conducted technical work at NASA that spanned decades. During this time, she calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for many flights from Project Mercury, including the early NASA missions of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, through the Space Shuttle program.[1][2] Her calculations were critical to the success of these missions.[1] Johnson also did calculations for plans for a mission to Mars
Dorothy Vaughn an African-American mathematician who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to supervise a staff at the center.
She later was promoted officially to this position. During her 28-year career, Vaughan prepared for the introduction of machine computers in the early 1960s by teaching herself and her staff the programming language of FORTRAN; she later headed the programming section of the Analysis and Computation Division (ACD) at Langley.
Mary Winston Jackson (April 9, 1921 – February 11, 2005) was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division. She took advanced engineering classes and in 1958 became NASA's first black female engineer.
Their contributions were made despite the resistance due to racism and bigotry. I couldn’t help but think about the millions of Katherine Johnsons and Dorothy Vaughns who were denied the opportunity to contribute to the progress of our nation. Racism and Bigotry is a cancer that has eaten away at this nation’s potential from its inception. Soviet Russia was kicking our behind in the space race because we had our best and brightest talent benched for no other reason than Racism and Bigotry. That is still true today.
Mr. President I know that making our nation great is your number one, number one priority. If that’s true, then your number one, number one, number one priority must be the elimination of institutional Racism and Bigotry from every aspect of government and national policy. America will never be great as long as our incredibly gifted citizens are intentionally restricted from being all that they can be.
Sincerely Yours,
Allen D. Edge
From
Allen D. Edge
Dear Mr. President,
Congratulations on your achievement. I know this is a very heady time for you. Any new job can be a little challenging. However, being President of the USA is beyond the imagination. I know a lot is coming at you real fast and you must have a hundred “number one priorities”. So I won’t waste your time.
I have recently watched a film entitled “Hidden Figures”. It is a bio pic about three remarkable African American women who were essential to the USA victories in the space race of the sixties. Below you’ll find a summary of their contributions.
Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an African American physicist and mathematician who made contributions to the United States' aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she conducted technical work at NASA that spanned decades. During this time, she calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for many flights from Project Mercury, including the early NASA missions of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, through the Space Shuttle program.[1][2] Her calculations were critical to the success of these missions.[1] Johnson also did calculations for plans for a mission to Mars
Dorothy Vaughn an African-American mathematician who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to supervise a staff at the center.
She later was promoted officially to this position. During her 28-year career, Vaughan prepared for the introduction of machine computers in the early 1960s by teaching herself and her staff the programming language of FORTRAN; she later headed the programming section of the Analysis and Computation Division (ACD) at Langley.
Mary Winston Jackson (April 9, 1921 – February 11, 2005) was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division. She took advanced engineering classes and in 1958 became NASA's first black female engineer.
Their contributions were made despite the resistance due to racism and bigotry. I couldn’t help but think about the millions of Katherine Johnsons and Dorothy Vaughns who were denied the opportunity to contribute to the progress of our nation. Racism and Bigotry is a cancer that has eaten away at this nation’s potential from its inception. Soviet Russia was kicking our behind in the space race because we had our best and brightest talent benched for no other reason than Racism and Bigotry. That is still true today.
Mr. President I know that making our nation great is your number one, number one priority. If that’s true, then your number one, number one, number one priority must be the elimination of institutional Racism and Bigotry from every aspect of government and national policy. America will never be great as long as our incredibly gifted citizens are intentionally restricted from being all that they can be.
Sincerely Yours,
Allen D. Edge
posted by Transitions Edge Productions at
1:23 PM
