"HOW DO WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING?"

 “HOW DO WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING?”

In the despicable post where the Trumpster emphasized the “apeness” of Black people, he likely had no idea that it was a Black person who gave all of us our sense of direction.  As he jet-sets between Mar-a-Lago and DC, he did not know that a Black woman made it possible.  Dr. Gladys West died on January 17 in Fredericksburg, VA, at the age of 95.  She was one of the central persons who made the current GPS system possible.  Every time one of us goes on our cellphones or car phones to get directions, we use a system that Dr. West developed.  Because I am classified as “white,” and because we who are so classified do not give credit or acknowledge the work of those classified as “Black,” I had never heard of Dr. West until her death last month.  The New York Times had a ¾ page spread on her for her obituary, and her accomplishments are stunning.

Gladys Mae Brown was born in Sutherland, Virginia in 1930 on a farm owned by her parents – the fact of Black ownership of land was unusual enough.  She walked three miles a day to and from a segregated school, and in the evenings and weekends, she helped to grow and harvest tobacco on her parents’ farm.  In school, she excelled in mathematics, especially in geometry.  In her autobiography “It Began with a Dream,” Dr. West wrote about those days: “I was starting to realize early that this newly found love for geometry was something that could help me find that road that I had dreamed about, the road that would take me far away from that farm.”

She was valedictorian of her high school class, meaning that she automatically got a full scholarship to Virginia State College (now University), and she attended there and received a bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in mathematics.  She was teaching high school in Martinsville, VA, when she applied for a job at the Navy’s weapons facility in Dahlgren, VA.  After reviewing her record and her references, they asked her to come for an interview, but she declined because she thought that they would reject her when they saw that she was Black.  A few weeks later, however, she received a letter saying that she had been hired anyway – her record was too stunning to overlook.

She was one of four Black employees at the site, and because of her mathematical abilities, she advanced quickly.  Her first job was to verify the accuracy of bombing coordinates, using a hand calculator (if you’re thinking “Hidden Figures,” yes, she was in that kind of category).  In the early 1960’s, she was part of a team that programmed a computer to track the movement of Pluto in relation to Neptune.  She then made her big step, using a new, powerful IBM computer to calculate the precise shape of Earth, accounting for many variables like gravity, tidal forces, and the curvature of the oceans.  This work led directly to the development of the current GPS system.  

She retired in 1998 but went back to college at Virginia Tech to get her doctorate degree in public administration.  She did not promote herself – indeed, few people knew her story, and it surfaced almost by accident.  In 2018 she attended an event for her college sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha and put on her bio form that she had helped to develop the GPS system.  Her friend from college, Gwen James, was astonished and offered to help her get her story told.  When Ms. James called Dr. West’s daughter to get more details on the story, the daughter replied: “What story?” But, now the story came out – she was inducted into the Air Force Hall of Fame, and one of her presenters put it this way:   "She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy, and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data. As Gladys West started her career in 1956, she likely had no idea that her work would impact the world for decades to come."

So, here she is – a powerful Hidden Figure, obscured by white male pride and her own humility.  Dr. Gladys West has shown us where to go and how to get there.  And, oh yes, to the Trumpster, put that in your own simian pipe and smoke it.