Black women on the screen. Beautiful Black women with families. Amazing Black Women that made the space program possible. Cue...tears.
I sat in the movie theatre the day after Christmas in an audience filled with Black women of all ages. The theatre was packed and once Hidden Figures started we were all on the journey together. Watching Black women in Jim Crow south in 1961 despite the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case and the bus boycott. Virginia was still Virginia. And in the midst of this racist program, there was power on that screen. And that power did not wear pants. They wore skirts and glasses, and carried mechanical pencils. And they brought the power of numbers to the space race. Remember no shuttle can land nor enter the atmosphere without the calculations.
The audience cheered and laughed. We all cried when one of characters spoke in fits of breathlessness about the half mile hike she had to take several times each day just to use the facilities. The story was also filled with balanced Black marriages. One more reason among many that makes Hidden Figures great.
Today, I took my daughter to see it. I sat in the front row with other Black female teens and they responded at every moment. The comments were alive because they were engaged. At the end a young girl who could not have been more than 6 or 7 started dancing to the closing credit music. Oh, did I mention that the soundtrack was the hotness?! "Running for the man..."
Watching Black women making sure that they were not downsized or outsourced. Keeping ahead of the curve so that when the position and moment opened up, they had to be called on to give the numbers. Math, technology, and engineering will always need human hands and intellect.
I needed to see this twice. I need to see this each time that I feel lost in this world. It is nice to be reminded that Black women exist outside of stereotypes and lies. It is nice to be reminded that Black families are beautiful and not always broken. We need for the good to be played alongside the bad and everything in between so that WE, Black women, us, can be whole. The world is always pitted against us. So it is vital for everyone to see Black female faces in the middle of one of the most important steps in history. The time when the United States was battling against Russia to get a man into space. And know that no man would have gotten there if it weren't for a woman. A colored, Black, beautiful, intelligent, and confident women.
Thank you Hidden Figures, I needed that.
