Counting the Stars 2019

     This film is based on the biography of renowned mathematician Katherine Johnson by Lesa Cline-Ransome and illustrated by Raul Colon.  Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as human computers.  They worked tirelessly to make sure the calculations for these trips were accurate.  They used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft.  Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program.  Katherine started in the early 1950’s to analyze data at NACA (later NSA) Langley laboratory.  

     In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon to work on this project.  John Glenn said get the girl to run the numbers by hand to chart the complexity of the orbital flight.  He knew that his flight would not be successful without her unique skills.  President Barack Obama awarded Katherine the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.  Her incredible life inspired the Oscar nominated film Hidden Figures.

     From the time Katherine was a young girl she loved math.  She counted the stars from her bedroom window at night.  She had a curiosity about the world and she was very studious.  She was born August 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.  Her parents were Joylette and Joshua Coleman and she was the youngest of four children.  Joylette was a teacher and Joshua was a lumberman, farmer, handyman and he also worked at the Grenbrier Hotel.  Greenbrier County did not offer public schooling for African-American students past the eighth grade.  The Colemans moved and their children attended high school in Institute West Virginia.  Katherine moved through the lower grades very quickly and she was enrolled at the age of ten in high school at she graduated at the age of 14.  She took every math course offered by the college.  Multiple professors mentored her including chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King and also W.W. Schieffelin Claytor.  He is the third African-American to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics.  Claytor added new mathematics courses just for Katherine.  
     She graduated summa cum laude in 1937 with degrees in mathematics and French at the age of 18.  She was the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia.  Through the efforts of WVSC’s president, Dr. John W. Davis , she became one of three African-American students and the only woman selected to integrate the graduate school after a US Supreme Court ruling.  The court ruled that states providing higher education to white students also had to provide it to black students.  There is more information about Katherine and her co-workers at NASA in the film Hidden Figures.  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)   

21 minutes, Doc directed by Andy T. Jones with Bahni Turpin.