Like many college students and adolescent movie buffs, the film Hidden Figures was not on the must-see list of Devin Houston in Jackson, Mississippi, and many young people or older adults as winter breaks ended and schools across the nation resumed classes.
Many would ask who wants to see a movie about three brilliant African-American women (Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson) who put their math skills to use at NASA. In addition, the movie is not a comedy, is violence free, not science fiction, and is absent loads of derogatory language and without loud, vulgar music or speeding cars and trucks. It uses chalk, pencils, basic adding machines, and dial-up telephones as props.
Today, having seen Hidden Figures recently, Houston counts himself among the growing number of people across the country who speak enthusiastically about the film and count it on their must-see list for a variety of reasons, even if they do not often go to see movies.
“The movie has a lot of key concepts” about life, says Houston, a 23-year-old computer science major at Jackson State University. As he echoed others voicing their thoughts about the impact of the movie, Houston ticked off a list of real-time life experiences the movie told about: race and gender discrimination and collaboration in the work place 50 years ago, individual initiative and determination, parenthood and teamwork, despite challenges at work and at home.
Houston was one of the university mentors who took more than 30 middle school boys of color to see the Hidden Figures as part of a university project funded by the Verizon Foundation to interest middle school minority males in pursuing careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The group was joined by 13 high school girls who participate in a program put together by an African-American engineers association to boost interest in engineering among high school minority women.
“I didn’t think it would grab them,” Houston said of his mentees. “It did. We talked about what they would take away.”
The student’s trip in Jackson to see Hidden Figures was one of a variety of organized efforts around the country to bring attention to a largely overlooked page of history.
