The grandchildren of Mary W. Jackson, from left, KaShawnta Lee, Bryan Jackson, and Wanda Jackson, all of Hampton, Va., stand for a photograph by the sign honoring their grandmother at a ceremony officially naming the NASA Headquarters building in honor of Mary W. Jackson, who was the first Black female engineer at NASA, Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, in Washington. "I can't even explain how I feel today," said Bryan Jackson. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
NASA on Friday is named its Washington headquarters after Mary W. Jackson, the space agency's first African American female engineer whose story was portrayed in the popular film "Hidden Figures."
Jackson started her NASA career in 1951 as part of a segregated unit of female mathematicians at what is now Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The women did calculations during the early pre-computer days of the U.S. space program.
Their story was chronicled in a book and the 2016 film.
Jackson was later promoted to engineer and retired from NASA in 1985. She died in 2005 at age 83.
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