Number One On The Charts: Celebrating NASA's Katherine Johnson, on her 98th Birthday

At this point in my life, you couldn't pay me enough to be 28 again. That was the year I got engaged to...oh, never mind!

However, on Women's Equality Day 2016, you COULD entice me to spend a day being 98 years old, just long enough to view the world through Katherine Johnson's eyes. She is the remarkable African American mathematician whose computations fueled America's space exploration efforts from Mercury through the Space Shuttle program. Ms. Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last November, and God willing, she will attend the world premiere of the Hollywood movie about her life and work starring Taraji P. Henson, "Hidden Figures," in January 2017.

Earlier this week, my friend Faith urged me to watch "The Great Debaters," a 2007 movie directed by (and starring) Denzel Washington, about the challenges faced by a small black college debate team during the 1930’s--and how they eventually defeated Harvard University's team in 1935.  I was in Gulu, Uganda when the movie premiered, and never really took the time to seek it out during my past decade living in East Africa. By the time the credits rolled, I almost stood up and cheered in the middle of Faith's living room! Though the performances were great, what struck me even more was how rare it is to see examples of black Americans excelling in areas other than sports, entertainment or, sadly, criminal activity in Hollywood blockbusters.

Let's keep it real...Hollywood has slavery down stone cold, along with Hip Hop, "Urban Cool," and "Gangsta Chic." Those elements pretty much encompass how the boardroom power players perceive black America in its totality. Throughout my adult life, I have longed to see the black versions of movies like "Four Weddings and a Funeral" or "Bridget Jones's Diary" rolled out with the same financial backing and PR fanfare, (Trust me...a movie about my romantic mishaps would earn BILLIONS.)

This incredibly huge gulf between what Hollywood sees and the reality of black American life and historic contributions fueled the #OscarsSoWhite controversy earlier this year, connected to the lack of black nominees for the 2016 Academy Awards ceremony. Again, I watched the debate from afar, trying to take the temperature of the media coverage, including Chris Rock's lacerating opening monologue and his interviews related to it. I actually admired him for being so boldly unapologetic in calling out Hollywood moguls for their inability to recognize their racial blind spots.

But here's my point. My friend Faith, the one who urged me to watch "The Great Debaters," had never heard of Katherine Johnson. This is a woman with a Masters' degree from Northwestern University, a world traveler, a woman who owns most of the major black Hollywood releases from the past few decades, and she wasn't familiar with the story. Yet both of us knew chapter and verse about Neil Armstrong and the moon landing by the time we were 10 years old. We knew about John Glenn and "The Right Stuff," and we knew about Sally Ride and Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space. And I'll grant you, there was a plenty of media coverage surrounding the first black female astronaut, Mae Jemison, during her historic achievement.

Finally, lest I forget to give Hollywood some morsel of credit, we also grew up with Star Trek's Uhura as a sleek, sophisticated interstellar role model.

But how could a story like Katherine Johnson's take so long to be unearthed...and how in God's name did Hollywood find the mettle to bankroll it at a big bucks level? Well, I suppose you can chalk it up to perfect timing: Taraji P. Henson is one of the most high-profile actresses in Hollywood today, thanks to "Empire." More than anything else, Hollywood executives want to make money. So Henson's considerable dynamism and boundless talent have transcended the usual boardroom trope:  "We like her, but she can't open a movie. She can't get enough butts in seats for us to make a profit." Trust me--Cookie Lyon will bake some major biscuits for the opening weekend of "Hidden Figures," and I don't need a crystal ball to predict that.

Imagine the incredible prospect of having Katherine Johnson be present to witness that spectacle. After all, she was alive when the producers of "Gone With the Wind" originally refused to let Hattie McDaniel attend the Oscars ceremony in 1940 because she was black, and she was nominated, for heaven's sake. It took Clark Gable threatening to boycott the Awards for them to relent.

As I keep thinking about the soaring inspiration of "The Great Debaters,' I'm reminded of the staggering hurdles black Americans have had to clear to “even the playing field,” to be considered worthy of basic human dignity. During the movie’s final scene, when young James Farmer, Jr. takes the podium at the close of the debate at Harvard University, he didn't draw solely on research or textbooks or quotes from ancient philosophers to seal the win. He brilliantly recounted a horrifying experience that he and his teammates had recently endured.

From the transcript of the Wiley College vs. Harvard University debate: “Resolved: Civil Disobedience is a Moral Weapon in the Fight for Justice.” James Farmer, Jr. --

"In Texas, they lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck -- and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes; and worse -- the shame. What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung, without trial, in a dark forest filled with fog? Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who were we to just lie there and do nothing?

"No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing -- just left us wondering why. My opponent says, "Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral." But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South, not when Negroes are denied housing, turned away from schools, hospitals -- and not when we are lynched.

“Saint Augustine said, ‘An unjust law is no law at all,’ which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist -- with violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter."

We, too, sing America. Black lives mattered when they were swinging from tree branches, and they still matter. Among us, too, are geniuses, like James Farmer, Jr. and Ms. Katherine Johnson. She has seen a lot since she was born in 1918, from Jesse Owens dominating the Olympics in 1936, to a black Supreme Court Justice and then a black President. She'll possibly see a woman President. And she's seen a man walk on the moon…thanks in part to her own efforts.

And now, finally, a there is a Hollywood film placing her historic contributions in their proper context, for the entire world to witness. So I'll rescind my opening sentiments in this post. I think I'd LOVE to be an 8 year old girl right now, to soak up all the extraordinary woman-related empowerment happening on the global scene right now. And I want to thank Katherine Johnson for contributing to a future in which brown-skinned girls can not only work in Hollywood, but they can even be real life Silver Screen Super Heroes.