NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 The hidden figures of the space race were recognized with Congress鈥 highest honor at a medal ceremony on Wednesday.
The Congressional Gold Medal was presented to the families of , Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden at the U.S. Capitol. Darden watched the ceremony from her Connecticut home.
A medal was also given to all the women who worked as mathematicians, engineers and 鈥渉uman computers鈥 in the U.S. space program from the 1930s to 1970s.
"By honoring them, we honor the very best of our country鈥檚 spirit,鈥 said author Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book 鈥淗idden Figures鈥 was adapted into a film in 2016.
The 春色直播 Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 鈥 a precursor to NASA 鈥 hired hundreds of women to crunch numbers for space missions. The Black women hired worked in a segregated unit of female mathematicians at what is now NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.
Johnson's hand-written calculations helped John Glenn become the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 鈥 the nation鈥檚 highest civilian honor.
Vaughan rose to become NASA's first Black supervisor and Jackson was NASA鈥檚 first Black female engineer. Darden is best known for her sonic boom research.
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