Mary Jackson

Mary Winston Jackson was born on the ninth of April 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, the daughter of Frank Winston and Ella Scott Winston, a family that placed the education of its children above all else. She grew up in Hampton and excelled in her studies, graduating from the all-Black George P. Phenix Training School with highest honors before earning bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physical science from the Hampton Institute in 1942.

For nearly a decade she moved through the roles open to a gifted Black woman in the segregated South — teacher, bookkeeper, receptionist, and clerk — before joining the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1951. She was assigned to the West Area Computing section at the Langley Research Center, the pool of Black women "computers" whose calculations quietly powered American aeronautics behind a wall of segregation.

Recognized for her skill, Jackson was invited to train as an engineer. Because the required courses were taught at a segregated white high school, she petitioned the City of Hampton for permission to attend. She prevailed, completed the coursework, and in 1958 became the first African American woman aerospace engineer at NASA. For decades she analyzed the airflow around aircraft and studied the effects of wind on flight.

Having reached the most senior engineering rank open to her, she chose in 1979 to step back and lead Langley's programs for women and minorities, opening the door she had forced for those who followed. She died on the eleventh of February 2005. In 2019 she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 2021 NASA's Washington headquarters was named in her honor. May the calculations she left, and the doors she opened, be remembered forever.