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Dorothy Vaughan
Mary Jackson works as a teacher and a USO secretary before taking a job as a computer at the NACA. She is extremely bright, and she finds herself frustrated when the intelligence that landed her a job at Langley doesn’t shield her from discrimination at the hands of her white colleagues. She is vocal about her frustrations, and her willingness to speak out helps her move up the ladder at work. Engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki gives her a job working outside of the computer pool, in aerodynamics. He encourages her to pursue greater opportunities at Langley, something she can only do after petitioning the city to allow her, as a woman, to take segregated engineering classes. Her persistence pays off, and she makes history, becoming the Langley Research Center’s first black female engineer. After decades of performing research at a senior level at the Langley Research Center, she takes a demotion to work in Human Resources, where she works alongside Gloria Champine to ensure that black women (and women in general) will have a fair opportunity to pursue careers as engineers. She is dedicated to her community and to the concept of the double V, which drives her to host open houses at the NACA and to do everything she can to draw young black students into its gates. Her enthusiasm and optimistic spirit sustain her and help her build a long and fruitful career marked by her dedication to gender equality in the sciences, something she views as a means to bridge the differences between races. She is one of the four women at the center of Hidden Figures, and was once an employee of Margot Shetterly’s father.
Mary Jackson Quotes in Hidden Figures
The Hidden Figures quotes below are all either spoken by Mary Jackson or refer to Mary Jackson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 11
Quotes
Compared to the white girls, she came to the lab with as much education, if not more. She dressed each day as if she were on her way to a meeting with the president. She trained the girls in her Girl Scout troop to believe that they could be anything, and she went to lengths to prevent negative stereotypes of their race from shaping their internal views of themselves and other Negroes. It was difficult enough to rise above the silent reminders of Colored signs on the bathroom doors and cafeteria tables. But to be confronted with the prejudice so blatantly, there in that temple to intellectual excellence and rational thought, by something so mundane, so ridiculous, so universal as having to go to the bathroom . . . In the moment when the white women laughed at her, Mary had been demoted from professional mathematician to a second-class human being.
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Chapter 19
Quotes
Being part of a Black First was a powerful symbol, she knew just as well as anyone, and she embraced her son's achievement with delight. But she also knew that the best thing about breaking a barrier was that it would never have to be broken again.
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Mary Jackson Quotes in Hidden Figures
The Hidden Figures quotes below are all either spoken by Mary Jackson or refer to Mary Jackson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 11
Quotes
Compared to the white girls, she came to the lab with as much education, if not more. She dressed each day as if she were on her way to a meeting with the president. She trained the girls in her Girl Scout troop to believe that they could be anything, and she went to lengths to prevent negative stereotypes of their race from shaping their internal views of themselves and other Negroes. It was difficult enough to rise above the silent reminders of Colored signs on the bathroom doors and cafeteria tables. But to be confronted with the prejudice so blatantly, there in that temple to intellectual excellence and rational thought, by something so mundane, so ridiculous, so universal as having to go to the bathroom . . . In the moment when the white women laughed at her, Mary had been demoted from professional mathematician to a second-class human being.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19
Quotes
Being part of a Black First was a powerful symbol, she knew just as well as anyone, and she embraced her son's achievement with delight. But she also knew that the best thing about breaking a barrier was that it would never have to be broken again.
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