I have been so excited to see the new movie, Hidden Figures. The
story of these "computers" who overcame legal segregation and discriminatory
attitudes toward women in the workplace to become firsts in their fields at NASA
is so inspirational. The fact that all three of the lead characters were and
are members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. was icing and I was giddy
anticipating this film coming out one week before our 109th Founders' Day.
Additionally,
the movie shows the American apartheid system under which these women not only
survived, but thrived. In today's climate, when white supremacists once again are quite
comfortable spewing their hate, it was especially chilling to see. Certainly,
we can see how far we've come, but we know there's still much work to be done.
I was born toward the "end" of the Civil Rights
movement. By the time I was old enough to begin to understand things, legal
segregation was not enforced. Instead, racial separation had become more
subtle. I went to integrated schools and never experienced "whites
only" accommodations. Like every other minority, I experienced prejudice
and discrimination, but I never lived what we saw in the film.
Instead, I heard about these things from my parents and my
godmother, who was accepted at Stephens College around 1919 or so, only to be
turned away when she arrived and they saw that she was black. My parents went to segregated schools, and my mother has told
stories of walking past the white kids' school, which was closer to her house,
to get the black kids' school.
For the past few years, we have heard people saying "get
over it, that's in the past," and "move on," when it comes to
matter of race. In reality we are living in the next generation of the Civil
Rights Movement. Or maybe we are getting ready to repeat the period after
Reconstruction.
But what I was thinking as I watched 'Katherine Johnson' jog
more than half a mile just to find a bathroom that she was allowed to use at
her workplace, was "we cannot ever let our story go." We must prepare the
next generation to carry on the fight for equality and to do that, they have to
know what they are facing.
