Their ideas were supported by community action, like the Greensboro sit-in, student walk-outs, and marches on Washington. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr., and others rose to the front of the national discussion. In order to support its own claims of defending democracy, America needed to clean up its public image. America's racist domestic policies simply made this more difficult, as non-white countries could look at American newspapers and see that their potential ally was treating non-white people poorly on their own soil. There are many possible answers, including but not limited to:Ĭonflict with the USSR during the Cold War put pressure on America to make allies among nations that only recently were liberated from colonization. Which do you think was the most important? Why? Hidden Figures outlines many of the forces that encouraged America to eventually desegregate. Comparisons like this inform our understanding of both movements, which makes both more memorable, as well as reminding us that no part of history exists in a vacuum. As aerospace engineering booms during and after WWII, so does civil-rights activism and action from the federal government though the space race makes rapid progress in the 60s, the quest for racial equality seems to stall out. Drawing parallels between different forms of development highlights both similarities and differences in their progress. The POV focus differentiates Hidden Figures from a purely historiographical account, and as a result, it's easier to relate to and remember the facts the story presents.Īnother technique to make thr story feel cohesive is a continual comparison between the American civil rights movement and the scientific movement at Langley. Shetterly uses examples from their home life (like Jackson making a soapbox car with her son, or Vaughan taking her children out for picnics) to illustrate the larger societal forces at work (like upward mobility and housing inequality). The events of the time period at Langley are filtered through their personal experiences. The four women provide the framework of almost every chapter. Shetterly makes the narrative of Hidden Figures feel cohesive using techniques that include point-of-view characters (like Johnson, Vaughan, and so on) and continual comparison. What techniques does Shetterly use to make that story feel cohesive? Hidden Figures tells a story that spans three decades, during which there's a world war and multiple social and scientific movements that affect thousands of Langley employees.
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