My Remarkable Journey
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The case stemmed from a lawsuit that had been filed by Lloyd Gaines: “Lloyd Lionel Gaines,” The State Historical Society of Missouri, https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/historicmissourians/name/g/gaines/.
In 1937 he had talked state officials out of approving legislation that would have granted West Virginia State two million dollars a year over two years: Albert P. Kalme, “Racial Desegregation and Integration and American Education: The Case History of West Virginia State College, 1891–1973,” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1973.
chapter 4: THE BLESSING OF HELP
Torpedo bombers and other military planes swooped down from the skies: Patrick J. Kiger, “Pearl Harbor: Photos and Facts from the Infamous WWII Attack,” history.com, https://www.history.com/news/pearl-harbor-facts-wwii-attack.
More than a thousand diplomats and family members from Germany, Italy, and Japan were living in and around the nation’s capital when the United States entered the war: Harvey Solomon, “When the Greenbrier and Other Appalachian Resorts Became Prisons for Axis Diplomats,” smithsonianmag.com, Feb. 21, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/when-greenbrier-other-appalachian-resorts-became-prisons-for-axis-diplomats-180974243/.
More than six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/learn.
At least a half-million other non-Jews also were executed: Terese Pencak Schwartz, Jewish Virtual Library, “The Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims,” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/non-jewish-victims-of-the-holocaust.
Five square miles of the city were leveled instantly, and an estimated eighty thousand people were killed: “Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” history.com, updated August 5, 2020, https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki.
The Norfolk and Western Railway located its headquarters on the West Virginia side in the late 1880s: “History and Heritage,” Town Square Publications, http://local.townsquarepublications.com/westvirginia/bluefield/02/topic.html.
Tens of thousands of World War II veterans would develop leukemia and other cancers: Atomic Heritage Foundation, Atomic Veterans 1946–1962, June 17, 2019, https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/atomic-veterans-1946-1962.
chapter 5: BE READY
The next year the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor to NASA) sent Congress a proposal to double its staff agencywide: Alex Roland, “The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 1915–1958,” Model Research, The NASA History Series, vol. 1, 1985. https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4103vol1.pdf.
Working in her favor, too, was Executive Order 8802: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry (1941), https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=72.
The first female “computer pool” dates back to 1935: “When the Computer Wore a Skirt: Langley’s Computers, 1935–1970,” NASA History Program Office News & Notes 29, no. 1 (first quarter 2012), https://www.nasa.gov/feature/when-the-computer-wore-a-skirt-langley-s-computers-1935-1970.
“The engineers admit themselves that the girl computers do the work more rapidly and accurately than they would . . .”: “Hidden Figures and Human Computers,” Smithsonian, National Air and Space Museum, https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/hidden-figures-and-human-computers.
The number of computers grew rapidly: “When the Computer Wore a Skirt: Langley’s Computers, 1935–1970,” NASA History Program Office News & Notes 29, no. 1 (first quarter 2012), https://www.nasa.gov/feature/when-the-computer-wore-a-skirt-langley-s-computers-1935-1970.
chapter 6: ASK BRAVE QUESTIONS
At the time, just about 34 percent of all women worked outside the home: “Changes in women’s labor force participation in the 20th century,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, TED: The Economics Daily, February 16, 2000, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2000/feb/wk3/art03.htm.
the equivalent of about $11,500 in today’s dollars: US Inflation Calculator, https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.
chapter 7: TOMORROW COMES
a Negro girls’ home economics club that would merge years later with the all-white Future Homemakers of America: “New Homemakers of America, Kentucky,” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, last modified August 8, 2018, https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/2882.
Called Sputnik 1, the 22-inch-round aluminum ball weighed 183 pounds: Roger D. Launius, “Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age,” https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/sputorig.html#american.
scientists all over the world, including the United States, had been working collaboratively toward the same goal: Roger Launius, “Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age.”
But in the meantime, another, unapproved satellite plan that had been developed by a team of US Army researchers for the IGY satellite effort resurfaced: Roger Launius, “Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age.”
He began working with congressional leaders to develop plans for a national agency dedicated to the exploration of space: Roger Launius, “Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age.”
That’s when the president of Hampton Institute at the time, Alonzo G. Moron, stepped up and offered Mrs. Parks a job: Dr. William Harvey, “Hampton University and Mrs. Rosa Parks: A Little Known History Fact,” Hampton University, http://www.hamptonu.edu/news/hm/2013_02_rosa_parks.cfm.
President Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957: “Civil Rights Act of 1957, National Archives, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/civil-rights-act-1957.
chapter 8: LOVE WHAT YOU DO
A poll by pioneer opinion researcher Claude E. Robinson, which was taken just after the Soviets sent both Sputniks into orbit: National Archives, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/sputnik/4-14-58.pdf.
Just six days after the birth of NASA, a special panel, led by Langley assistant director Robert R. Gilruth: Andrew Chaikin, “Bob Gilruth, the Quiet Force Behind Apollo,” Air & Space Magazine, February 2016, https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/quiet-force-behind-apollo-180957788/.
The Space Task Group decided to call the first space travelers “astronauts”: “Project Mercury Overview: Astronaut Selection,” NASA, November 30, 2006, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/astronaut.html.
NASA records show that 508 service records were examined, which narrowed the list to 110 men who met the criteria: “Project Mercury Overview: Astronaut Selection,” NASA.
Virginia Governor Lindsay Almond shut down schools that were trying to comply with the US Supreme Court’s order to desegregate: James H. Hershman Jr., “Massive Resistance,” Encyclopedia Virginia, https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/massive_resistance#start_entry.
In 1962, students from North Carolina A&T and Bennett in Greensboro started a new round of protests, targeting about a dozen businesses that remained segregated: Karen Hawkins and Cat McDowell, “Desegregation of Greensboro Businesses, 1962–1963,” UNC Greensboro, http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/essay1963/collection/CivilRights.
The president of Bennett, Dr. Willa Beatrice Player, was a fascinating woman who played a critical role during the protests: “Profiles in Black History, News & Record, January 17, 2004, https://greensboro.com/life/profiles-in-black-history/article_fff9a7f3-8f8f-540b-8171-f9a216baa824.html.
On May 17 and 18 that year, about seven hundred protesters, mostly students, were arrested: “Mass Action in Greensboro (May–June),” African American Civil Rights Network, https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm.
On January 31, 1961, our space team launched into space a chimpanzee: “Mercury Redstone 2,” NASA space Science Data Coordinated Archive, https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=MERCR2.
Millions of television viewers tuned in: Bob Granath, “Shepard’s Mercury Flight Was First Step on the Long Journey to Mars,” NASA’s Kenn
edy Space Center, May 2, 2016, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/shepards-mercury-flight-was-first-step-on-the-long-journey-to-mars.
The president asked Congress to approve a whopping seven billion to nine billion dollars: “Space Program—President Kennedy’s Challenge,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/space-program.
A few years later, in the early 1950s, NACA purchased its first IBM computers, an IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch and the IBM 650: Margot Shetterly, Hidden Figures (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2016), 138.
Soviets sent yet another of its cosmonauts, Gherman Titov, into space on October 6, 1961: Loyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury (Washington, DC, NASA, Office of Technology Utilization, 1966), 378.
chapter 9: SHOOT FOR THE MOON
The federal government had financed the program at colleges and flight schools throughout the country: “Civilian Training Program,” National Park Service, Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, https://www.nps.gov/tuai/civilian-pilot-training-program.htm.
Tuskegee trained an estimated eleven hundred combat pilots: “Training For War,” National Park Service, American Visionaries exhibit, https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/tuskegee/airwar.htm.
The Birmingham Children’s Crusade, as the demonstrations would come to be called, had been organized: Kim Gilmore, “The Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963,” updated January 28, 2020, https://www.biography.com/news/black-history-birmingham-childrens-crusade-1963.
Negro deejays helped spread the word: “The Children’s Crusade,” African American Civil Rights Network, https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963bham.
The international embarrassment and public pressure pushed President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy: “Birmingham Campaign,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/birmingham-campaign.
By May 10, Dr. King and Rev. Shuttlesworth announced a major victory: “Birmingham Campaign,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University.
a bomb ripped through the Gaston Motel: “Birmingham Campaign,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University.
Governor George Wallace blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama’s auditorium: “Governor George C. Wallace’s School House Door Speech,” Alabama Department of Archives and History, updated December 12, 2012, https://archives.alabama.gov/govs_list/schooldoor.html.
The Kennedy brothers again were forced to intervene, sending a hundred troops: “June 11, 1963: From George Wallace to John Kennedy, a Momentous Day for Civil Rrights,” Morgan Whitaker, MSNBC, June 11, 2013, https://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/june-11-1963-george-wallace-john-ke-msna60336.
The same evening in Jackson, Mississippi, Myrlie Evers and her children had watched President Kennedy’s speech: Jerry Mitchell, “’Memories’ of home: What Does Myrlie Evers Have to Say about National Monument Designation,” Clarion Ledger, March 13, 2019, https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2019/03/13/myrlie-evers-national-monument-home-medgar-evers-jackson-mississippi/3148021002/.
It would become public in the years ahead that civil rights leader Anna Arnold Hedgeman, who was on the march’s organizing committee: Arlisha Norwood, “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” National Women’s History Museum, https://www.womenshistory.org/resources/general/march-washington-jobs-and-freedom.
About 70 percent of Negroes had voted for President Kennedy: “John F. Kennedy’s Legacy Resides in African-American History,” Harvard Political Review, December 1, 2013, https://harvardpolitics.com/john-f-kennedys-legacy-resides-african-american-history/.
About seven hundred volunteers joined the Mississippi crusade: “The Mississippi Summer Project,” Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-project/.
While doing so, the investigators found the bodies of eight other Negroes: “Murder in Mississippi,” Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/.
On May 16, 1963, astronaut Gordon Cooper flew on Project Mercury’s final mission: “Mercury Crewed Flights Summary,” NASA, November 30, 2006, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/manned_flights.html.
So the Mission Control Center operations moved from Cape Canaveral, Florida: “1965: Mission Control Transfers to Houston,” NASA, April 9, 2018, https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/1965-mission-control-transfers-to-houston.
Astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom (one of the original seven astronauts in Project Mercury), Edward H. White II, and Roger E. Chaffee climbed aboard the spacecraft . . . all three were dead: Dr. David R. Williams, “The Apollo 1 Tragedy,” NASA, https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo1info.html.
The main cause of the fire was determined to be electrical: Dr. David R. Williams, “The Apollo 1 Tragedy.”
chapter 10: FINISH STRONG
Major Lawrence was among seventeen air force pilots chosen for a space venture, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory: James Hill, “1st Black Astronaut Added to Space Hero Roster,” Chicago Tribune, October 27, 1997, https://www.chicagotribune.com.
The MOL program that had trained Major Lawrence for space was canceled in 1969: John Uri“50 Years Ago: NASA Benefits from Manned Orbiting Laboratory Cancellation,” NASA Johnson Space Center, June 10, 2019, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-nasa-benefits-from-mol-cancellation.
a brilliant young man, who not only had graduated from high school at age sixteen . . . classical pianist: “Robert Lawrence: First African-American Astronaut,” NASA, updated February 21, 2018, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/robert-lawrence-first-african-american-astronaut.
Dwight was a promising U.S. Air Force pilot with an aeronautical engineering degree from Arizona State University: Charles L. Sanders, “The Troubles of ‘Astronaut’ Edward Dwight,” Ebony, June 1965, https://books.google.com/books?id=Nd4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q&f=falseEric.
The campaign’s goal was to draw attention to the poverty and suffering in America’s cities: Eric Niiler, “Why Civil Rights Activists Protested the Moon Landing,” updated July 18, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-launch-protests.
the huge Saturn V rocket—as tall as a 36-story building: “Saturn V,” NASA, updated September 16, 2011, https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/rocketpark/saturn_v.html.
They also took photographs: “Apollo 11 Mission Overview,” updated May 15, 2019, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html.
chapter 11: LAND ON A FIRM FOUNDATION
But our excitement quickly turned to horror when just seventy-three seconds into the launch . . .: Howard Berkes, “Challenger: Reporting a Disaster’s Cold, Hard Facts,” National Public Radio, January 28, 2006, https://www.npr.org/2006/01/28/5175151/challenger-reporting-a-disasters-cold-hard-facts.
Astronaut Group 8, which included thirty-five space travelers: “1978 Astronaut Class,” NASA, updated August 6, 2017, https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/1978-astronaut-class.
Photo Section
Daddy built our childhood home, “The Big House,” on Church Street in White Sulphur Springs, which literally was the biggest house on the street.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
My eighth grade classmates and I (white dress in the front) at West Virginia Colored Institute had to dress up for our graduation ceremony. Our teacher, Mrs. Rose Evans, stands behind me in the center.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
I graduated from high school at age fourteen, the age I was in this photo.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
At West Virginia State College (later West Virginia State University), I (standing far right) was always the youngest girl in the group.
Courtesy of the Jo
hnson family
As a child, I always thought Daddy was the tallest, handsomest man in the world.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
My mother, Joylette Roberta Coleman (Mamà), was a quiet, steady force in my life.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
I graduated from West Virginia State in 1937 with my classmates, Brownie and Jim.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
This is the cast of the womanless wedding play that I produced at Carnegie Elementary School in Marion, Virginia, during my first teaching job. The play brought Jimmie (second from the right) and me together.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
Jimmie and me on our wedding day in November 1939.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
Jimmie and me as newlyweds.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
I taught French, math, and music at Tazewell County High School in Bluefield, Virginia.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
Jimmie snapped this picture of the girls and me on one of our Sunday outings after church at the White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery.
Courtesy of the Johnson family
Jimmie, the girls, and I took this photo as our Christmas card in 1955. It was our last photo together.
Courtesy of the Johnson family