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Jonathan Foster

Professor Gordon

Black History II

March 8, 2017

A Different Theatre of Repression and Resistance

Reading both Robin Kellys, We are Not What We Seem, and Shetterlys, Hidden

Figures, gave insight to Black Society during the early and mid twentieth century. Kellys

essay illustrates hidden movements within the black society, along with the treatment of

incivility within everyday life. In, Hidden Figures, white authority uses African American

women, and white women, to their advantage from WWII through the Cold War, which was

hidden from American society. Both contexts show segregation in everyday life, along with

showcasing resistance by black Americans within the workplace.

In both reads, American society was ruled by the Jim Crow laws which allowed

segregation in a legal stand point. White society felt they were superior to blacks and would

do anything to make themselves feel dominate over them. In Shetterlys read, a vast amount

of workers at Langley were African American women, who were mathematicians. Chapter

one first indicates that executive order 8802 ordered the desegregation of the defense

industry. However, segregation was still very clear within the workplace.

Langley was divided into two separate wings; the east wing for the white workers and

the west wing for the black workers. Initially one could recognize the contradiction within the

executive order of desegregation simply due to the separation of wings. The repression was

also carried out to both the bathrooms and cafeteria which was an insult to the black workers

who have earned their position to the same extent as white workers. One of the characters in
the book started a form of resistance by removing the racial signs and stashing them in her

purse. However, despite her efforts the signs would always get replaced and her resistance

would either be counter-reacted or could possibly have her position taken away.

Other important aspects to examine when reading Shetterlys book are the

discrimination and hidden roles women in general played in these historical movements. Not

only were there intelligent black women in the workplace, but there were also white. The text

has multiple accounts of males being surprised that women in general had the ability to

calculate and generate mathematical abilities. These women workers were also degraded to

the level of girl computers purposely stripping the importance of a more dominate title,

female or women computers.

Compared to Kellys essay, Shetterly gives insight to the black middle class lifestyle

of repression and resistance. In Kellys context, many of the employees were more labor

workers and the acts of repression focused more on transportation. The resistance in Kellys

text included: assembly in protected areas, stealing\strikes both in and out of the workplace

and transportation. Hidden Figures, has a different theatre, representing black individuals

thriving for middle-class success and have to resolve to more subtle forms of resistance, such

as stealing segregation signs. The individuals highlighted in Shetterlys text had to push

beyond the factor of being discriminated and segregated in order to serve the country, which

repressed them, and put a positive name for both black and women populations.
Worked Cited

Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the

Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. New York: William

Morrow, 2016.

Robin D. G. Kelley, We Are Not What We Seem: Rethinking Black Working-Class

Opposition in the Jim Crow South, Journal of American History, Vol. 80, No. 1

(June, 1993), 75-112.

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