Quote:
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When Mary asked Emma Jean to participate in a career panel in 1962, organized by the local chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, she readily agreed. An all-black group of junior high school girls paid close attention to Mary and Emma Jean’s joint lecture, entitled “The Aspects of Engineering for Women.” Afterward, Emma Jean entertained the girls with a slideshow from a trip she had recently taken to Paris and London. Their appearance together in front of the group—Mary, petite and black, and Emma, white and nearly a foot taller—made as powerful a statement on the possibilities of the engineering field as their actual presentation. Not only did the girls receive firsthand evidence that women could succeed in a traditionally male field; in Mary and Emma’s collaboration, they saw that it was possible for a white workplace to embrace a woman who looked like them.
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This quote from Chapter 19 says a great deal about what an impact these women had. And about the aspects of community and their roles in the community that multiplied that impact. Had they simply been black, women, engineers who worked for NASA, that would have been important. But because they were out in the community, meeting young people, they became role models for a whole new generation. Role models both as
women AND as
women of colour.