Before John Glenn would climb into the capsule that made him the first American to orbit Earth, he asked NASA to have one specific person hand-check the computer's math — a Black woman named Katherine Johnson, working in a segregated building across the campus

Before John Glenn would climb into the capsule that made him the first American to orbit Earth, he asked NASA to have one specific person hand-check the computer's math — a Black woman named Katherine Johnson, working in a segregated building across the campus

The line that made Katherine Johnson famous was spoken by somebody else, and it was not flattering. “Get the girl to check the numbers.” That was John Glenn, in the weeks before the flight that would make him the first American to orbit Earth. The girl was Johnson, a 43-year-old research mathematician at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. She was being asked to check a computer’s arithmetic. She checked it, and the numbers held. What sh…