Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson
Katherine Johnson (maiden name Coleman, first marriage Goble) is an American mathematician known for her decades-long career at NACA and NASA, where she started as a West Computer, known for performing complex computations with astounding accuracy. She works with the Flight Research Division to solve pivotal math equations for America's space program, from the first American in space to the lunar landing to planning Mars missions. Shetterly emphasizes that, despite Johnson's status as the most famous human computer, Johnson considers herself one of many curious, engaged people simply doing their jobs.
Dorothy Vaughan
Dorothy Vaughan is an American mathematician who started at Langley during WWII thinking it would be a temporary wartime job. She becomes the head of West Computing until the department is dissolved, and she is the first black supervisor at the NACA. She anticipates the rise of machine computers and learns programming. She encourages the careers of multiple women, "midwifing" discoveries, though she's never credited as an author herself. She's frugal and doesn't like making a fuss, even trying to avoid a retirement party after her 28-year-long career.
Mary Jackson
Mary Jackson is an American mathematician and NASA's first black female engineer. She is passionately involved in her community, leading a Girl Scout troop for over 30 years. Toward the end of her career, she takes a demotion to become Langley's Federal Women's Program Manager, clearing the way for further generations of women to be hired, recognized, and promoted.
Christine Mann Darden
Christine Darden (maiden name Mann) is an American mathematician and engineer with a PhD in mechanical engineering. She comes to Langley around 20 years after the other featured women, and her research into sonic boom minimization is used in aerodynamics today. She is involved in many of the same social programs as the other women, including the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
John Glenn
A Project Mercury astronaut and Marine who becomes the first American to orbit Earth, using calculations checked personally by Katherine Johnson.
Virginia Tucker
Langley’s head computer in 1943. Tucker runs Langley’s computing operation of over 200 women, both white and black, when Dorothy Vaughan is hired. Between 1942 and 1946, she oversees the training of 400 Langley computers. In 1947, after a 12-year tenure with Langley in which she can move no higher, she accepts a job as an engineer at an aviation company.
Margery Hannah
West Computing’s section head when Dorothy Vaughan is hired. Hannah is white, but she socializes with her black computer colleagues despite segregation. Blanche Sponsler is her assistant.
Blanche Sponsler
Blanche Sponsler is the supervisor of West Computing after Margery Hannah. After some health problems, Sponsler delivers a nonsensical speech during a meeting at work; she is institutionalized for an illness that will later be identified as schizophrenia, and she dies later that year. Dorothy Vaughan becomes the supervisor of West Computing after her.
Miriam Mann
Miriam Mann is a mathematician at Langley. She is very short, and she's one of Vaughan’s good friends. Mann steals the Colored Computers sign from the segregated lunch table until Langley stops replacing it.
Dorothy Hoover
Dorothy Hoover is a mathematician at Langley, and she becomes accomplished in theoretical aerospace engineering. She's one of the first black computers to work specifically with an engineering group (Stability Analysis), instead of general computing.
Kazimierz “Kaz” Czarnecki
Czarnecki is the assistant section head in the Four-by-Four-Foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel at Langley. When Mary Jackson encounters racism from white computers, she vents to him about it, and Czarnecki offers her a position on his research team. He supports Jackson's transition to engineer.
Asa Philip Randolph
A. Philip Randolph is the head of the largest black labor union in the US (the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) and the forefront of the black freedom movement during and after WWII. With his good friend Eleanor Roosevelt, Rudolph convinces President Roosevelt to desegregate the defense industry in 1941. Randolph organizes the march on Washington at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I have a dream" speech.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King is a minister and activist in the American civil rights movement, supporting nonviolent protest. His enormous influence on America is mentioned frequently in the novel, including his fandom of Star Trek, specifically for the black female crew member Lieutenant Uhura.
Melvin Butler
Butler is the personnel officer at Langley during its massive WWII expansion. He hires the first black female computers.
Henry Pearson
Head of the Flight Research Division, which Katherine joins in 1953. After she's been there six months, Dorothy Vaughan and Henry Pearson negotiate Katherine's permanent position with the division, as well as a raise. Pearson organizes the self-education lecture series for engineers to share what they know about space flight.
