--- title: "NASA to Rename HQ After “Hidden Figures” Engineer Mary W. Jackson" description: "NASA announced today that it's renaming its Washington, DC headquarters after Mary W. Jackson, the first Black engineer in the space program." date: "2020-06-24" modified: "2020-06-24" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/nasa-hq-hidden-figures-mary-w-jackson" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "mary w. jackson" - "NASA" - "racial justice" - "space" --- # NASA to Rename HQ After “Hidden Figures” Engineer Mary W. Jackson ![NASA announced today that it's renaming its Washington, DC headquarters after Mary W. Jackson, the first Black engineer in the space program.]() *\Image: NASA\* NASA announced today that it's renaming its Washington, DC headquarters after Mary W. Jackson, the first Black engineer in the space program. "Today, we proudly announce the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building," said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine in [a statement](). "It appropriately sits on 'Hidden Figures Way,' a reminder that Mary is one of many incredible and talented professionals in NASA’s history who contributed to this agency’s success. "Hidden no more," Bridenstine continued, "we will continue to recognize the contributions of women, African Americans, and people of all backgrounds who have helped construct NASA’s successful history to explore." Jackson was hired by NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, in 1951. [According to NASA](), at the time Jackson was likely the only Black woman alive working as an aeronautical engineer. She went on to work on the Apollo program, which successfully launched a series of American astronauts to the Moon during the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, NASA has often struggled with racial justice. There wasn't a single Black astronaut in the Apollo Moon missions that Jackson worked on — and, as NASA acknowledged in its press release about the renaming of its headquarters, her career started in a segregated area of Langley Research Center. Jackson's work — alongside other pioneering Black aerospace scientists including Dorothy Vaughan — gained widespread attention after the publication of the 2016 Margot Lee Shetterly book "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race." Shetterly's book was later adapted into the acclaimed 2017 film "Hidden Figures," in which Jackson was played by musician and actress Janelle Monáe. "We are honored that NASA continues to celebrate the legacy of our mother and grandmother Mary W. Jackson," said Carolyn Lewis, Jackson’s daughter, in the NASA statement. "She was a scientist, humanitarian, wife, mother, and trailblazer who paved the way for thousands of others to succeed, not only at NASA, but throughout this nation." ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()