Into the Fire

Hidden Figures is the film based on a true story of three "colored" women who excel at much needed skills in the NASA environment of discrimination during the volatile early 60s after the Russians are the first to successfully put an astronaut in space. You will find the specific plot points via the link provided. Highly recommend it to all viewers.

Katherine Goble/Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Manae) get a brief opportunity to display their highly skilled and much needed talents amidst doubt, prejudice, and resentment. Giving respect to those who don't return it would cripple most people, let alone women, in an intense highly competitive workplace, but these women determined they should have their shot at contributing to their country's space program. As devoted workers and patriots, they rose above the ugly demoralizing treatment from their white peers and finally visibly earned the respect and admiration they deserved. 

The actors in this film do an outstanding job and the writing of the characters rings mostly true to that era in that part of the country.

Having grown up in Seattle, Washington, under the love and guidance of a father from immigrant parents and a mother who survived small pox, parents who lived through The Great Depression, I learned respect for everyone, skin color was not in our vocabulary, and patriotism was of tantamount importance. It nearly nauseated me to see the treatment and regulations applied to these women and anyone of color during those hard and sorrowful times.

These amazing women conquered those prejudices ingrained in the psyches of misled groups of people blinded by arrogance and ignorance and established themselves among the elite minds of the NASA space program when the competition with the Russians was keen and ever present.  

Again, if you haven't yet seen this film, you really should. It will break your heart but in the end it will make you cheer.

Father, how is it that we humans can be so utterly stupid about other people? We're all sin-stained and color doesn't change that. Only Jesus' Blood cleanses us from all of our unrighteousness – and that's the only "color" that truly matters. Help us, Lord, to see beyond our ridiculous prejudices whatever they may be. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.