first, heather ann thompson discusses the attica prison uprising of 1971. that's followed by cathy o'neal on how data algorithms impact society. and on this week's "after words" at 10 p.m. eastern, john dickerson, host of cbs' "face the nation," recalls memorable presidential campaign moments. we wrap up in prime time at 11 with some programs on the current presidential candidates. first up, dick morris discusses his book, "armageddon: how trump can beat hillary," followed at midnight with david cay johnston's critical talk about the making of donald trump. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> tonight you will hear margot lee shetterly, author of "hidden figures" -- [applause] "the american dream and the

untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race." hear her journey about writing this remarkable story that combines the rich intersection of the civil rights era, the space race, the cold war and the movement for gender equality. as an anthropologist with an admiration for history, i was curious about this date, september 8th. what happened with nasa on this date. so september 8th, 1967, the surveyor v launched. 1983, sat com vii launched. and today, september 8th, 2016, margot lee shetterly publicly launches her book -- [laughter] "hidden figures" into the literary world. [applause]

so a little bit on margot. i know many of you you know her, or went to school with her. margot was raised right here in hampton, virginia. she graduated from the university of virginia with a degree in finance. a journalist, independent researcher, entrepreneur and co-creator of an english-language monthly magazine with her husband, aaron, margot is the daughter of one of the first nasa black male engineers, so she grew up knowing many of the women in "hidden figures." margot is the founder of the human computer project and the recipient of the virginia foundation of the humanities grant for her research into the history of women in computing. she lives in charlottesville, virginia. writer virginia wolfe with once said anonymous in history was usually a woman. let me say that again. [laughter] anonymous in history was usually

a woman. well, tonight these brilliant women are anonymous no more. thanks to margot and her book, "hidden figures." may the names of katherine johnson, dorothy vaughn, mary jackson, dr. christine darden and the other women who contributed to the space race and changed the course of history finally receive their due. now, lucy gave a few housekeeping notes. i just want to remind everyone that her talk is going to be here, but the book signing will take place at the hampton history museum afterwards in the great hall, okay? so walk back across the street. and so c-span asked me to say that because they're filming, they ask for no flash photography. so if you want to take a picture, just turn your flash off. and please remember to science your phones. so, again, i welcome you on behalf of the hampton history museum, and they invite you to make history with us. and tonight margot's doing just

that, making history. it is with great pleasure and honor that i introduce my friend, margot lee shetterly. [applause] >>chadra, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. thank you to the hampton history museum which has been incredibly supportive of this research since the very beginning. and i can't think of any place better to publicly launch this endeavor than here in hampton, virginia, my hometown, with my home people. [laughter] thank you so much for coming out here tonight.

it's actually sort of a wonderful thing that this venue, this speech that i'm giving now is taking place here at st. johns in a church, because it really started six years ago also in a church here in downtown hampton, first baptist church, where -- my home church where i grew up. and i was sitting in a pew with my parents, robert and margaret lee, who are here, and my husband, aaron shetterly. and we were interviewing a former sunday schoolteacher of mine, mrs. kathleen land, about her career as a mathematician at the langley research center. none of us had an idea at the time that first interview would turn into all of this, this "hidden figures," the book, my first book, and a movie. but as exciting as it's been to receive that level of enthusiasm

for this endeavor, the most gratifying thing for me about these last few years has been learning about my hometown. there is so much that i didn't know and so much that i didn't know about the people who lived here, the people who i knew growing up here. so writing this book for me has been a way of telling my story and tracing my path from the lives of these groundbreaking women. this is my history. this is your history. in this history belongs to -- this history belongs to all of us. the thrilling parts, the mundane parts, the hard parts and the painful parts. all of this has made us who we are today. and so the fact that we are here in this church across from the hampton history museum which sponsoredded this event -- sponsored this event, that we're so close to hampton university, to the langley research center, to fort monroe, to the archaeological remains of the

grand contraband camp, it simply couldn't be a more fitting venue. "hidden figures" follows the lives of four african-american women, dorothy vaughn, mary jackson, catherine johnson and christine darden, who is here. [applause] and i am so pleased also to let you know that many of the family members of dorothy vaughn and mary jackson -- and i believe mrs. johnson -- are here as well as gloria who is a part of my book and many other women who worked with them, and men, who worked with them over at the langley research center. so thank you so much for coming. and if you see them in the crowd tonight, definitely, i think i see sharon stack back there. i'm just so thrilled that these

women who actually wrote -- lived the history so i could write it are here. so, yeah, so many of us gathered here. we were raised by them or lived with them or worshiped with them or socialized with them or taught by them or worked with them. and i'm sure you'll agree with me when you say that we have learned a tremendous amount from them. so many lessons from these women, from their lives. and i have, you know, a list that could fill another book with the things that i have learned from them researching their lives. but one of the most timely, i think, and the one that i just like to emphasize tonight is the following: never allow fear to get the best of curiosity and imagination. sending humans into space is an inherently risky endeavor. it takes a powerful imagination to believe that it's possible to

land humans on the moon and to bring them back safely. but that adventure, one of humanity's greatest, had its roots right here in hampton, virginia. that a black woman could do some of the calculations to get them there, given time that might have taken even more imagination to come to fruition. but that happened as well as we know from the acclaim that our own catherine johnsons has received from the work she did on the mercury and apollo missions, most notably on john glenn's groundbreaking orbital flight in 1962. people from around the united states, indeed from around the world, came to work at langley. these women worked alongside people of all backgrounds, and they achieved together things that even today, 47 years later, we have to stop and marvel. it's incredible what is possible when you take the best minds

among us and allow their imaginations to run free. so the narrative is total through the eyes of these four african-american women. it was also my mission to use the stories of their lives to tell a series of other stories of world war ii and how it transformed our city and our society, of the anxious days of the cold waxer of the hope and the -- war, of the hope and the conflict of the civil rights movement and of the great strides that all women have made legally, socially and economically over the course of the 20th century. scores of black women worked as mathematicians at langley and at the other nasa installations around the country. there are so many names. sue wilder, eunice smith, barbara holly, christine richie, ida bassett, miriam mann, annie

easily, there are so many of them. but they were part of a larger cohort of women. white women like marjorie hanna, dorothy lee, sharon stack, sarah bullock, mary burton, barbara weigel, and these women were valedictorians, they were math and science competition winners. they were very smart women who, until they came to langley, thought that they would put their math degrees to work in a classroom. they too have received a fraction of the credit that that they deserve. in the 1970s and 1980s, black women like mary jackson and janet mckenzie worked together with white langley colleagues like gloria and jean and belinda adams to create opportunities for talented women of all backgrounds. through an organization i started called the human computer project, i'm trying to recover the names of all of the women who worked as computers, mathematicians and engineers

during the early days of the naca and nasa not just at langley, but at all of the nasa and naca installations over the years. so tonight i'd just like to encourage you to get in touch with me. there's a contact form on my web site, margot lee shetterly.com. you can get in touch with the museum. but if you know the names of women who were your grandmothers or mothers, aunts, colleagues, friends, ladies that you knew from church, your neighbors, please let me know because i really would like to have all of their names so none of these women are in the shadows anymore. now, all good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. and i already knew the end. i'm the result of this wonderful history that happened here in hampton, virginia. my father's retired, nasa

langley research scientist. my mother is a retired hampton university english professor. i'm the proud product of integrated hampton city schools, and i graduated from the university of virginia which now accepts men and women from all backgrounds. [laughter] but that first meeting with ms. land six years ago led me to ask the question, how did this all begin? how did she and katherine johnson and the many other women that i remember from my childhood end up working at nasa of all places? many people know the story of the space program which was gaining momentum at a time, the same time that a young preacher from atlanta named martin luther king jr. was taking center stage in what was then becoming known as the civil rights movement. but fewer people know that well before the start of the space

program hampton was america's first center for aeronautical research and development. fewer people know that before dr. king, a civil rights leader named a. philip randolph led a campaign to ban discrimination in the civil service and the defense industries against african-americans, something that also benefited mexicans, jews, catholics, many other people who had been left out of the new jobs that were coming about as the result of world war ii. in may 1943, almost two years after franklin roosevelt's executive order desegregating the civil service, five black women started jobs working as mathematicians at the langley memorial aeronautical laboratory. so what i'd like to do right now is read from the first chapter of my book, "hidden figures." this is how the story begins. and as i'm reading, remember it all happened here in hampton,

virginia. chapter one, a door opens. melvin butler, the personnel officer at the langley memorial aeronautical laboratory, had a problem the scope and nature of which was made plain in a may 1943 telegram to the civil service's chief of field operations. this establishment has urgent need for approximately 100 junior physicists and mathematicians, 100 assistant computers, 75 minor laboratory apprentices, 125 helper-trainees, 30 shing nothinger ifs and typists, explained the missive. every morning at 7 a.m. the bow-tied butt sprang to -- butler sprang to life to collect the men and women, so many women now each day more women who had made their way to the lonely --

[inaudible] on the virginia coast. the shuttle conveyed the recruits to the door of the laboratory service building on the campus of langley field. upstairs butler's saf whisked them through the first-day stations; forms, photos and the oath of office. i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help me god. thus installed, the newly-minted civil servants fanned out to take their places in one of the research facility's expanding inventory of buildings, each already full as a pop pod ripe with peas. no sooner had sherwood butler set the final brick on a new building, then his brother melvin set about filling it with new employees. closets and hallways stood in as makeshift offices. someone came up with the bright

idea of putting two desks head to head in order to squeeze three workers in a space designed for two with. in the four years since hitler's troops overran poland, since american interest in the european war, the laboratory's complement of 500 employees at the close of the decade was on its way to 1500. yet the great, groaning war machine swallowed them whole and remained hungry for more. the offices of the administration building looked out on the crescent-shaped airfield. only the flow of civilian-clothed people heading to the laboratory -- the oldest outpost to have national advisory committee for aeronautics, naca -- distinguished low brick buildings belonging to that agency differed from the airplane air corps. the air base, devoted to the development of america's air power capability, the

laboratory -- a civilian agency charged with advancing the scientific understanding of aeronautics and disseminating its findings to the military and to private industry. since the beginning, the army -- since the beginning the army had allowed the laboratory to operate on the campus of the airfield. the close relationship with the army fliers served as a constant reminder to the engineers that every experiment they conducted had real world implications. the double-hangared 210-foot-long buildings standing side by side had been covered in camouflage tape in 1942 to deceive enemy eyes in search of targets. its shady and cavernous interior sheltering the machines and their minders from the elements. men in canvas jump suits moved from plane to plane stopping to hover at this one or that one like pollinating insects, checking them, filling them with gas, replacing parts, examining them, becoming one with them and

taking off for the heavens. the music of airplane engines and proopel hours cycling through the various movements of takeoff, flight and landing played from before sunrise until dusk. each machine's sound as unique to its minders as a baby's cry to its mother. bethe tenor notes of the engines -- on-demand hurricanes onto the planes. plane parts, model planes, full-sized planes. just two years prior with storm clouds gathering, president roosevelt challenged the nation to ramp up production of airplanes to 50,000 per year. it seemed an impossible task for an industry that as recently as 1938 had only provided the army air corps with 90 planes a month. now america's aircraft industry was a production miracle, easily surpassing roosevelt's mark by more than half. it had become the largest

industry in the world, the most productive, the most sophisticated, outproducing the germans by more than three times and the japanese by nearly five. the facts were clear to all belligerents; the final conquest would come from the sky. for the flyboys of the air corps, airplanes were mechanisms for transporting troops and supplies to combat zones, armed wings for pursuing enemies, sky-high launching pads for ship-sinking bombs. exhaustive preflight checkouts before climbing into the sky, mechanics rolled up their sleeves and sharpened their eyes. a broken piston, an improperly locked shoulder harness, a faulty fuel tank light, any one of these could cost lives. but even before the plane responded to its pilot's knowing caress, its nature, its very dna from shape of its wings to the coulding of its engines had been

manipulated, refined, massaged, deconstructed and recombined by the engineers next door. long before america's aircraft manufacturers placed one of their newly-conceived flying machines into production, they sent a working prototype to the langley laboratory so the design could be tested and improved. nearly every high-performance aircraft model in the united states made its way to the lab here in hampton, virginia, for drag cleanup. the engineers parked the planes in the wind tunnels making note of air-disturbing surfaces, bloated fuselages, uneven wing geometries. as prudent and thorough as old family doctors, they examined every aspect making careful note of the vital signs. naca test pilots took the plane for a flight. did it roll unexpectedly? did it stall? was it hard the maneuver? resisting the pilot like a shopping cart with a bad wheel?

the engineers subjected the airplanes to tests capturing and analyzing the numbers, recommending improvements. some slight, others significant. even small improvements in speed and efficiency multiplied over millions of pilot miles added up to a difference that could tip the long-term balance of the war in allies' favor. victory through air power, henry reid, engineer in charge of the lang hi laboratory, crooned to his cavalry. victory through air power, the nasa-ites repeated to each other minding each decimal point, poring over equations until their eyes tired and the battle of research, victory would be theirs. unless, of course, melvin butler failed to feed the three shifts a day, six days a week operation with fresh minds. the engineers were one thing, but each engineer required the

support of a number of others; craftsmen to build the airplane models tested in the tunnels, mechanics to maintain the tunnels and nimble number crunchers the process the numerical deluge that issued from the research. lift and drag, friction and flow. physics, of course, meant math, and math meant mathematicians. and since the middle of the last decade, mathematicians had meant women. langley's first female computing pool, started in 1935, had caused an uproar with the men at the laboratory. how could a female mind process something as rigorous and precise as math? [laughter] the very idea investing $500 on a calculating machine show it could be used by a girl. [laughter] but the girls had been good, very good. better at computing, in fact, than many of the engineers, the

men themselves grudgingly admitted. with only a handful of girls winning the title mathematician, a professional designation that put them on equal footing with entry-level male employees, the fact that most computers were designated as lower-paid sub-professionals provided a boost to the laboratory's bottom line. but in 1943 the girls were harder to come by. virginia tucker, langley's head computer or, ran laps up and down the east coast searching for co-eds with even a modicum of analytical or mechanical skills, hoping for matriculating college students to fill the hundreds of open positions for computers, scientific aides, model makers, laboratory assistants and, yes, even mathematicians. she conscripted what seemed like entire classes of math graduates from her north carolina alma mater, the greensboro college for women, and she hunted at virginia schools and the state

teachers college in farmville. mel have you been butler leaned on the u.s. civil service commission and the war manpower commission as hard as he could so the laboratory might get top priority on the limited pool of qualified applicants. he penned ads for the local newspaper, the daily press. reduce your household duty. women who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do jobs previously filled by men should call the langley memorial aeronautical laboratory, read one notice. fervent pleas from the personnel departments were published in the employee news leather. are there -- newsletter. are there members of your family who would like to play a part in gaining supremacy of air? have you friends of either sex who would like to do important work toward winning and shortening the war? with men being absorbed into the military services, with women already in demand by eager employers, the labor market was as exhausted as the war workers themselves.

a bright spot presented itself in the form of another man's problem. a. philip randolph can, the head of the largest black labor union in the country, demanded that roosevelt open lucrative war jobs to negro applicants. threatening in the summer of 1941 to bring 100,000 negroes to the nation's capital in protest if the president rebuffed this demand. who the hell is this guy, randolph, fumed the president's aide. roosevelt blinked. a tall, courtly black man with shakespearean diction and the stare of an eagle, a. philip randolph, close friend of eleanor roosevelt, head of the 35,000-strong brotherhood of sleeping carporters. the porters waited on passengers in the nation's segregated trains, daily enduring prejudice and humiliation from whites. nevertheless, these jobs were coveted in the black community because they provided a measure

of economic stability and social standing. believing that civil rights were inextricably linked to economic rights, randolph fought tirelessly for the rights of negro-americans to participate fairly in the wealth of the country they had helped build. twenty years in the future, randolphing would address the multitudes at another march on washington, then concede the stage to a young, charismatic minister from atlanta named martin luther king jr. later generations would associate the black freedom movement with king's name, but in 1941 as the united states oriented efforts aspect of its society -- every aspect of its society, it was randolph's long-term vision and the specter of a martha never happened that pried open the door that had been closed like a bank vault since the end of reconstruction. with two strokes of a pen, executive order 8802 ordering the desegregation of the defense

industry and executive order 9346 creating the fair employment practices committee to monitor the national project of economic inclusion, roosevelt primed the pump for a new source of labor to come into the tight production process. nearly two years after randolph's 1941 showdown as the laboratory's personnel request reached the civil service, applicants of qualified negro, female candidates began filtering in to the langley service building. presenting themselves for consideration by laboratory's personnel staff. no photo advised as to the applicant's color. that requirement, instituted under the administration of woodrow wilson, was struck down as the roosevelt administration tried to dismantle discrimination in hiring practices. but the applicants' alma maters tipped their hand. west virginia state university, howard, arkansas agricultural

mechanical and normal, hampton institute just across town, all negro schools. nothing in the applications indicated anything less than fitness for the job. if anything, they came to the job with more experience than white women applicants after having had many years of teaching experience on on top of math and separate states. then they would have to have an experienced girl, white obviously, someone whose disposition suited the sensitivity of the assignment. the warehouse building, a brand new space on the west side of the library, a part of campus that was still more wilderness than anything resemble ago workplace, could be just the same. if brother sherwood's group had already moved there, with round-the-clock pressure to test the airplanes queued up in the hangar, engineers would welcome the additional hands.

some of the engineers were northerners, relatively agnostic on the racial issue, but devout when it came to mathematical talent. melvin butler himself hailed from portsmouth, just a across the bay from hampton. it required no imagination on his part on what some of his colleagues might think of integrating negro women. the come heres, as the virginians called the newcomers, and their strange ways be damned. there'd always been knee crow grow employees in the lab -- janitors, groundskeepers. but opening the door to negroes who would be professional peers, that was something new. butler proceeded with discretion. no big announcement in the daily press, no fanfare in air scoop. but he also proceeded with directions. nothing to herald the arrival of the negro women at the laboratory, but nothing to derail them either. maybe it was just a function their carrying out his duty.

maybe he was both. state law and virginia customs kept him from truly progressive action. but perhaps the promise of a segregated office was just the cover he needed to get the black women in the door, a trojan horse of segregation opening the door to integration. whatever his personal feelings on race, one thing was clear: butler or was a langley man through and through, loyal to the laboratory, to its mission, to its world view and to its charge during the war. by nature and by mandate, he and the rest of the naca were all about practical solutions. so too was a. philip randolph. unrelenting pressure and superior organizing skills laid the foundation for what in the 1960s would come to be known as the civil rights movement. but there was no way that randolph or the men at the laboratory or anyone else could have predicted that the hiring of a group of black female mathematicians at the langley

memorial aeronautical laboratory would end at the moon. still shrouded from view where are the great aeronautical advances that would crush the notion that faster than sound flight was a physical impossibility. the electronic calculating devices that would amplify the power of science and technology to unthinkable dimensions. no one anticipated that millions of wartime women would refuse to leave the american workplace and forever change the meaning of women's work or that american negroes would persist in their demand for full access to the towning ideals of their country -- founding ideals of their country and not be moved. the black male mathematicians who -- female mathematicians would find themselves at the intersection of these great transformations, their sharp minds and ambitions contributing to what the united states would consider one of its great victories. but in 1943 america existed in the urgent present. responding to the needs of the

here and now, butler took the next step, making a note to add another item to sherwood's seemingly endless requisition list, a metal bathroom sign bearing the words "colored girls." [applause] that's how the story begins. i won't tell you everything about the story except that the americans finally do get to the moon -- [laughter] but everything that happens in between, hopefully, you'll enjoy reading that. and so i thought it might be interesting to open the floor to any questions that you might have at this time. yes.

>> [inaudible] >> oh, yeah. i'm sorry. if you guys could -- if you could raise your hands, and then the microphone will come to you so we can hear you. >> [inaudible] >> well, the thing about the civil service is the pay depended on your grade. so if you were hired in as a gs4, then, you know, you would get paid what the other gs4s did. the issue was getting hired into that level. so it wasn't always the case that the black women were hired in at the same level, though there were, actually, in the very beginning some women such as dorothy vaughn who was hired in at a p1 level which was equivalent of many male engineers. so it, there were, there were definitely exceptions, but in general most of the women -- black, white or otherwise --

were hired as sub-professionals and paid less than men. [laughter] >> i can just talk. margot, i am so fascinated by your research and your productivity. i'm going to buy two books. [laughter] i had a question about the book, "we could not fail," by moss and paul? you were able to read, use that too? okay, because i've learned some fascinating things about them such as carothers, the black guy who did all the sophisticated inventions of the camera that allowed us to see pictures of the moon, and i'm just so proud of you. >> thank you.

yeah, there's a book that came out last year that was called "we could not fail," and it tells the story of many of the african-american engineers who worked at the marshall space center. there's also a book that came out called rise of the rocket girls which tells the story of a group of women who worked at the jet propulsion laboratory which is now part of langley or part of nasa out in pasadena, california, during world war ii. so i think it's really exciting that a lot of these stories of people who have worked in the space program and worked in aeronautics for a very long time are starting to come to light right now, and that's another book that tells that story. >> hi, margot. i too am very proud. but when you were writing the book or researching, what was it the one -- if you can think of it -- most surprising anecdote

or nugget that you came across in these stories? if there was one. [laughter] >> there were so many. like, there were just so many, you know? for example, there was a cold war tie to langley here. there was an engineer who had worked here at langley. i think he left in 1946 to go to the ames laboratory. but he was connected with the famous rosenberg spy case. if you remember during the cold war, the rosenbergs were executed for spying for the russians. and an engineer who had worked here at langley was actually put on trial, and he was, he was convicted of perjury. but they had -- the government charged him with passing naca secrets to the russians. and so, you know, the research on that was fascinating because the fbi came to hampton, they

knocked on people's doors, you know, they were investigating this whole situation thinking that people were communists. so that, that was another very surprising link that hampton, virginia, had to, you know, this great global struggle between the united states and the russians. >> [inaudible] on the steps behind you. what's the riskiest thing you've done or kind of parallel to that would you be brave enough to go into space also? would you be an astronaut if you didn't have to do any other homework, but you could just go based on all the math that's been done before us? >> the question was would i want to go into space. [laughter]

i kind of really like the earth. i'm not sure that i -- [laughter] although i must say that i think, i really do think the work that nasa does and it's continuing to do is really important, and i think that it's interesting and are exciting that -- and very exciting that right now nasa is taking up the mantle and pushing forward to go to mars. i think that's really exciting. one of the other things is they're resurrecting some of the work that was pioneered by christine darden in terms of supersonic transport planes. i think that's great. that's happening right here at langley. so, you know, i might not be the first passenger -- [laughter] for mars i, but, you know, i think the fact that that work is continuing is very important and very, very exciting. how did you go from finishing the book to the movie?

how did that happen? >> well, that, that is a very, that is a very interesting question. the thing about this project is from the very beginning people have responded to it very strongly and with a great deal of enthusiasm. which is completely has to do with the strength of the women, of all of the women, of the fact that there were so many women. this wasn't a story of one woman or even five women, but that there was this group of scores of black women and that the total group of women, i think, was probably from the 1930s to the 1980s, let's say, was more than a thousand. so i think that the idea that this disproves anything that we know about women not being able to do math -- [laughter] it's just a natural that people respond to it.

so, but -- and what happened is my, my literary agent, after finding a publisher for the book, got the book proposal into the hands of a producer who saw it and just was blown away by the fact that she hadn't heard this story. and ever since, you know, i've been running to catch up since then. [laughter] it's been going on kind of a parallel track. and the thing that is so exciting for me about that is that i am so happy that there is so much enthusiasm for the book, but i know that there will be an even greater audience for this history because of this movie. so it's, but it's been, it's been a ride, for sure. [laughter]

>> after world war ii, many women in the industry were let go to make room for returning servicemen. to what extent did that happen at langley, and was there a differential between whites and african-americans? and did some women continue on and have successful careers at langley and rise up through the ranks in responsibility? >> yeah. so it was really interesting, i had access to all of the employee newsletters from 1942 through the present, and the newsletters were constantly reporting what was happening in terms of recruiting, in terms of the reduction in force. the best that i can tell right after the war there was a cutback slated at langley. but at the end of the day, they made a cut of only 30 employees. it seemed that enough people after the war returned home, you know, left their jobs that they only had to cut 30 people. but hen in -- but then in the nt

12 months, you know, 18 months, something like that, they started recruiting again and looking particularly for more women to do the computing. and so that really coincided, like 1946, 1947, with commands in the army being consolidated at fort monroe, command being consolidated at langley, the norfolk naval base. so this entire region after the war, there was a lot of speculation that like after world war i this area would go through a tremendous depression. and so, you know, i saw so many newspaper articles of people speculating and being concerned about that. and what happened is that, you know, the cold war started, and hampton rose turned into one of the centers of what we call the military industrial complex which lasted for a very long time. so, and langley went along with that, with that.

it did not seem for my, the research that i did that there was a differential in the layoffs between the white women and the black women. and the word seemed to get around even after, you know, the peak of world war ii in a lot of black churches and the lounges of black high schools that there is this amazing job in newsome park, that there was this job opening for black women at langley who had math degrees. ..

haven't seen the whole movie. they are still working on it, in record time because they are excited and want to make sure it is in theaters by january and possibly early previews in december so they are working on it. the thing for me working on the book and movie at the same time is i had to let go of the fact that i was writing a nonfiction book that took place over 30 years of history versus a movie that had to get people into the theaters, tell the story, capture the essence of it, hit the highlights and come back safely in two hours. [laughter]

>> i talk pretty closely with the producers of the movie and i had a hard time understanding, you can't film a book and put it in a movie and sell movie tickets so the movie is inspired by true events. they have to take a segment of the history and make it exciting and what they decided to do was focus on that time from sputnik when the russians first launched the sputnik satellite sending the us and soviets into the cold war and space race. until that moment when catherine johnson reviews the calculations for john glenn's flight which at the moment has been counted many times by many people including

johnson, the decision which being -- the right decision to take one of the highlights of research instead of the entire book. >> i want to congratulate you in bringing so many people together from your research. i am happy to be here because it brings so many people together in a way they had no idea they were connected. because the bond, dorothy bond used to serve dinner and provide food for starving students from aspen institute. who would have known back then what she really was all about

who she was a smart lady and raised all these amazing children but sitting next to people not only connected to the people, and that is connected to me and this person sitting next to me with this person over here and there are folks in here that didn't know they had a connection with each other had it not been for your book and your research. if we just realized through conversation, passion for research and knowing our history and making that anonymous, connected so much, also

connected and i thank you for doing that. and that is the part of your story that is loud and clear for me. we ask everybody to raise their hand who is connected to somebody because of your book, everybody would raise their hands, we are connected. [applause] >> i want to thank you for bringing us all together, the winston jackson clan, we come across the country to support you and your book, so thank you. will there be a premier in

hampton for the movie? [applause] >> that is the question. i think nasa has been supportive of this project not just from the research center which has been amazing from the very beginning and -- in this book. the people at nasa headquarters are very supportive, they are very interested in doing what they can to make sure this community which is the core, and and i do know that is something everyone, they are very interested in making sure this

community does that. >> my question, at first baptist church and the discussion or idea came into your head when your sunday school teacher, and the sunday school teacher, you worship together, and you knew her basically, what happened that particular sunday, and my husband and i visiting our parents, in december 2010. we went to church that sunday,

and met and spoke with former sunday school teacher. my father was talking, and the work they did. and these are stories i heard and you are from here and don't think about it but my husband was not from here, hold on. can you please tell me this story, how come i have never heard of this story? i think a lot of us have that experience of growing up someplace wherever it is and take it for granted, the neighbors and talent and things, this is the case of something happening, my husband looking at that, forcing me to appreciate the community i have grown up in

and asking the question why are those women there, that was what happened, as simple as that. [applause] >> i wanted to thank you for writing a book and with new opening of the african-american museum, featured at the bookstore there, and you will be at the african-american museum -- >> i didn't hear the first part of your question. >> will you or your book -- >> speaking at the african-american museum, i am still working through a lot of the details of where i am going to be for the fall and hoping washington dc and possibly almost done.

>> congratulations, margot lee shetterly. i know your background is in financing and journalism. what was your experience diving into history? >> this is a question from my historian friends, and studied finance in college, what was my experience diving into history, really loved it and a lot of people think so many things -- business is separate from science, separate from humanities and also different, but not possible for the same people to have those interests and i thought of myself as somebody with business and finance and entrepreneurship,

and uncovering this story was wonderful and fascinating and digging in the archives and newspaper articles that a lot of skills i learned working in business, and writing skills certainly helped me a lot, i loved every minute of this. >> i would like you to give us this story at a glance. please. >> the question to recount probably the most well-known anecdote that has to do with this particular history in the book, certainly an anecdote that polls many times for the last 50

years basically about catherine johnson and her role in the orbital mission which john glenn's flight tipped the balance in the space race between the united states and the soviet union. as you know, from the research here, a computer made me think -- is a piece of electronic hardware. before the 1950s and 60s and advent, a computer was somebody who computed and that meant someone who wore a skirt. it was a woman. when these electronic computers started being used more widely for government applications, business applications it took a while for people to trust them,

any new technology, to figure out how to use them to understand how reliable they are. for a long time, the aeronautical research into the early part of the space program was done by women, the women in the book. they worked at langley and all the nasa installations and they were working on the space program calculating the trajectory of how are we going to take this man in the can and last him into space around the earth. mrs. johnson worked in the flight research division, changed its name over the years but the people that particular decision were very closely linked to the early days of the space program. her group was responsible for

calculating those trajectories of those early flights. at the point at which the mission transformed from a simple ballistic trajectory, send a man up and he comes down to something that circled the entire earth require a much higher level of communications and computer technology so nasa langley was in charge, that was one of gloria's jobs in the early days of the mercury tracking range, setting up tracking stations around the earth in order to track this man in the spaceship as he circulated overhead. and computers were brought in to help with that task to do that task and calculate those numbers but this was a real moment at which the old-school computing which had been done by a room

full of women sitting at a desk with $500 calculating machines was heading off to work to a room computer, computer that took up a room as opposed to a room full of computers, that would actually have the computing power necessary to track this satellite of the earth, and get him home safely. as the transition was happening and mrs. johnson working in this particular decision among the many checklists as you can imagine nasa had to have to know this was a mission that would be successful, among them was getting catherine johnson who authored the report in 1969 laying out the original math describing the trajectory of how to send a man into orbit around

the earth, she was asked by hand, the same numbers the date of the computer had so essentially a simulation in which a woman computed the numbers and compared that to what the computer came up with and if those sets of numbers showed the actual word from the research report then astronaut john glenn, one of the things i want to know before i go, get the girls to do it basically. [applause] >> because all of the women who worked there at that time were girls, they were called girls, so she was a girl who worked for those fellows, got the girls to

do it, the girl checks the numbers and checked out what the computer says, thumbs up, let's go. that is the john glenn anecdote and an amazing story. >> as a young person fascinated by the book i would like to know what your message for young people fascinated with the book might be. >> so many things, this idea, curiosity and imagination, a really important lesson i learned from the book, and you ask catherine johnson and speak

to her, how is it possible for you in the south and a work environment that still has segregated bathrooms, cafeterias and all these things that are happening when a woman may not have been able to get a credit card in her own name how were you able to do this work and tell your bosses that you are confident your math will get this guy into space and bring him home safely? seems like a lot to ask. she says it goes back to what my father said to me, you are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you are. [applause] >> and i have spent more time thinking about that than any other thing that she said because it is one of those things that seems very simple and is one of the most profound

things, the part about no one is better than you which gives any of us the confidence to walk into a situation with people who may be different than we are and feel confident we can hold our head high but the other part, you know better than anyone else, that is the powerful, the power in this. catherine johnson felt it was her prerogative as a black woman in the still segregated south, in this environment to extend herself to all of the people she worked with, the white mail engineers, white women, she had such a transcendent sense of humanity and true equality, meeting people as equals regardless who they were, and there are so many times in a

situation, i really do think what would catherine johnson's father say? how would i employ this you are no better than anyone else and no one is better than you, because it seems very simple and she says it as if it were very simple and it is clearly one of the keys to her success. that is another one of the things i feel i have learned a lot from this research. be change the people here want to find, i.e. no you won't be able i don't think to sign these books so will you have another time sign the books? >> i am definitely going to be back on the 30th of september at norfork state university. [applause]

>> that will be another opportunity. i will talk with the museum and we will work out the logistics to get as many books signed as possible. i think that is it and i thank everyone so much. [applause] >> booktv is a pueblo to learn about the city's history and literary culture. we interviewed professor matthew harris to talk about the founding fathers and religion.

>> we often hear in the media that the culture wars especially with religion began in the 1980s with ronald reagan and the moral majority of folks instrumental in bringing him to office. one thing was there has always been conflict with religion and the role it plays in public life. during the founding generation i was amazed at the conflict that emerged very clearly. most of the founders believed religion was necessary to prop up the new democracy or new nation they created so absolutely religion was incredibly important to most of the founders. one of the only thing they could agree on in terms of what religious liberty meant was there shouldn't be a state-sponsored religion which is part of the first amendment but also americans should be able to freely exercise their religious beliefs. beyond that there is a whole host of differences in the first amendment in terms of what it

meant and why they included. james madison was like his contemporary jefferson, both virginia and they fought against established religion during the revolution in the 1780s. madison was responsible in 1785 creating a bill in virginia or a pamphlet, his colleague jefferson later wrote a bill for religious freedom in which they argued religion is a natural right and you can freely believe what you want to believe or not believe anything at all, so these two virginians were instrumental in trying to separate church from state. you see the first amendment as a reflection on jefferson and madison's efforts during those debates in the virginia legislature and so it bears their imprint they think the church and state should be on two sides of the fence. having said that if you look at

the 1770s and 80s it was a novel idea because religion permeated everything these guys did, writing the state constitutions, you had to believe in the bible in order to hold public office, that was the sort of thing, and let them believe what you want to believe and if they are fit for public office the public will decide what that fitness is. let's not make the pledge believe in something, they didn't like religious dogma but recognized religion was a role in the nation at founding. religion is interesting, they didn't talk a lot about religion at the constitutional convention. one of the only things they said was you didn't have to hold public office, didn't have to believe in the bible or some form of christianity to hold public office, there would be no religious litmus test, really interesting. that met with a lot of pushback because a lot of people argue christians were the only ones fit for public office so they

did and talk about religion a lot because i think they understood how divisive it was. a lot of the folks who were there were strong personalities who wanted to separate church and state. some of the more committed christians like patrick henry if he were there at the convention he didn't go but if he did go then almost certainly he would have agreed on the final outcomes of the convention, he would have insisted there was an expression of christianity in the final document. patrick henry wanted to place a bigger role because these fathers were important for states that support, the government to pass laws to prop up religion. for example before they wrote the constitution many states had establishment of religion, if you were living in new england in the 1700s your tax dollars

would support the congregational church before the brand of puritanism. you didn't have a choice would you pay taxes and support local congregational church if you live in virginia, your tax dollars would support the anglican church, so patrick henry and others like him believed if you remove that government support somehow the churches would crumble, wouldn't exist and people would not pay to support them on their own but patrick henry and his virginia neighbors madison and jefferson believe the opposite, that religion would still there is on its own because people would see the need for faith and you wouldn't need government to impose those mandates, they would happen naturally. you can see that religious conflict even in the earliest debates when they were talking

about the constitutional convention. there was a topic of debate it is religion, yes, religion didn't govern them front and center at the constitutional convention but it would be later on during the ratification campaign. when the constitution was finished in september 17, '87, and went for ratification where the states would vote in special conventions if they wanted to support the new constitution and they had to have 9 states the board, didn't have to be unanimous. and religion was a big issue because a lot of these anti-federalists as they were called, the folks that opposed the constitution, said the constitution was silent with respect to religion and it really bothered them so they proposed a litany of amendments right from the get-go acknowledging jesus christ as creator and lord, acknowledging the governor of the universe, asking to include a phrase in the constitution acknowledging the bible as the holy infallible word of god and that sort of thing. so it didn't get anywhere but

they tried. i think there was a strong belief as there is now that is a christian nation and the devil is in the details of a statement like that. what does that mean? does that mean a number of other christians in this country as we count? we should privilege christianity and if so which version of christianity should be privilege? the founding, there were people who thought this was a christian nation from the get go in the 1700s when the first europeans settled here and to to acknowledge christianity in the founding documents so i think that was the real issue for people like patrick henry and samuel adams of massachusetts, roger sherman of connecticut and other local christians who we would call founding fathers with my students asked me why does it matter if we characterize this as a christian nation or secular founding, why does it matter?

who cares? apart from the fact we want to get the history right even though it is controversial in some respects, it does matter because our public policy debates are tied into this understanding of the founding. if we think this is a christian founding we are more likely to support a law that states we can pray in a classroom, public school room or give tax dollars to private religious schools. if we think it is a secular founding then we are more likely to oppose tax dollars for religious schools or saying prayers at football games or convocation ceremonies. those questions are historical questions and they matter because of our connection to public policy. most people in this country recognize like the founders did that religion has a role to play, it is codified in the u.s. constitution, first amendment, but when we start talking about limitations on religious

beliefs, limiting muslims from coming here, or excluding some religious group from public office because you don't like what their church teaches or something, that is where you get into rough water with the constitution because it is very clear you were not supposed to impose a litmus test on these people, when justice lieberman was running with al gore in the election of 2000, can we have a jewish man on the ticket? if you believe in the constitution of course you can. when mitt romney ran in 2012 we had a mormon. of course you can if you believe in the constitution. when the constitution says there is no religious litmus test that is what it means, presumably we can have an atheist, any number of religious beliefs among people, the whole idea was americans in theory wouldn't judge them on their religious beliefs but on their fitness for office, their agenda, their

politics. religion according to the founders shouldn't play a role whether we elect somebody or not. sadly it does. one of the things i learned about writing this book with my co-author thomas kidd is that religion was very contentious during the founding generation just as it is today. the question is would they be shocked at the disagreements we have today of the conflict we experience in public spaces? i don't think so because they experienced it themselves. we always have these challenges in our nation and probably always will because religion is a divisive topic. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to pueblo and the many other destinations on our cities tour go to c-span.org/citiestour. >> we want to welcome joe conason and his latest book "man of the world: thfu