A group of Black women mathematicians, aeronautical engineers and human computers who contributed to the nation’s historic achievements with their groundbreaking work for NASA during the 20th century space race were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
The award winners were honored with the nation’s highest civilian honor and include three women who became known as NASA’s “unrecognized unknowns”: Mary Jackson, NASA’s first black engineer, and mathematicians Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan. Their work paved the way for the first American astronaut to successfully orbit the Earth.
All three women were honored posthumously on Wednesday; their families attended the ceremony and accepted the awards on their behalf.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who delivered the opening remarks at the ceremony, described the women as “giants on whose shoulders all these female astronauts stood at a time when our nation was divided along racial and often gender lines.”
This photo provided by NASA shows mathematician Katherine Johnson in 1966.
NASA via AP
“These women dared to enter fields where they were previously unwelcome. They excelled in science and mathematics and made groundbreaking contributions in aeronautics. But these women didn’t just crunch numbers and solve equations for the space program,” Johnson said. “They actually laid the foundation upon which our rockets launched and our astronauts flew and our nation soared.”
“Although we call them ‘unrecognized figures,’ we should not view them as mere minor figures in the American history of space exploration,” he continued. “They were the engineers and mathematicians who made history itself.”
The Congressional Gold Medal was also awarded Wednesday to aeronautical engineer Christine Darden, who NASA said is “internationally known for her research on supersonic aircraft noise, particularly sonic boom reduction” and was the first black woman at NASA Langley to be appointed to the top level of the Senior Executive Service.
This photo provided by NASA shows engineer Mary W. Jackson at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in 1977.
Robert Nye/NASA via AP
The legacies and stories of Jackson, Johnson and Vaughan were captured in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, loosely based on the 2016 nonfiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. In the film, Jackson was portrayed by Janelle Monáe, Johnson by Taraji P. Henson and Vaughan by Octavia Spencer.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson also delivered a speech during Wednesday’s ceremony and paid tribute to the women.
This undated NASA photo shows Dorothy J. Vaughan.
NASA via AP
“The pioneers we honor today, these ‘unrecognized figures,’ their courage and their imagination took us to the Moon, and their lessons, their legacy will take us back to the Moon. And then imagine, imagine, when we leave our footprints in the red sands of Mars,” he said. “Thanks to these people, part of our NASA family, we will continue to sail the cosmic sea to distant shores.”
The Congressional Gold Medal was also awarded on Wednesday to all women who worked as human computers, mathematicians and engineers at NASA and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA’s predecessor, between the 1930s and 1970s.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson presents the Congressional Gold Medal to Andrea Mosie, Apollo lead sample processor, during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony honoring women who served as computers, mathematicians, and engineers at NASA between the 1930s and 1970s. This ceremony will take place on September 18, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters
According to NASA, the space race between the United States and the then Soviet Union began in 1957 with the successful launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, by the USSR.
President John F. Kennedy, in a speech to Congress on May 25, 1961, called on the United States to send an American to the moon before the end of the decade. That goal was achieved eight years later, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon, while their colleague Mike Collins flew the Apollo 11 command module around the moon, according to NASA.
Wednesday’s ceremony came nearly five years after the passage of HR 1396 – the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act – in 2019. The law directed Congress to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Johnson, Jackson, Vaughan, Darden and “all women who worked as computer, mathematician and engineers” at NASA and NACA between the 1930s and 1970s.
The late Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, who first introduced the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act in February 2019, thanked her colleagues on October 17, 2019, after the bill’s passage, saying in a statement at the time, “Recognizing the many women who have not received the recognition they deserve for their contributions to technological advancement and competitiveness in the United States has become one of my greatest privileges as a member of Congress.”
The congresswoman, a Democrat from Texas who chaired the House Science Committee from 2019 to 2022, died on December 23, 2023.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
