by Alison Young
My inspiration for Hidden Figures is the story of the African-American women who worked as ‘Human Computers’ from1935 for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), a precursor to NASA. They were segregated from the white workers and this did not change until 1958.
The black on black equations, on the left, represents the way the African-American were unseen although their work was of utmost importance to the space programme. The white on white equations, on the right, depict the white, mainly men, scientists who were the face of NACA.
The Alchemist's Needle 