Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
No Longer Hidden: NASA Renames Headquarters After First Black Female Engineer
NASA announced on Wednesday that it would name its Washington, D.C., headquarters after Mary Jackson, the organization’s first black female engineer and a pivotal player in helping U.S. astronauts reach space. Jim Bridenstine, the administrator of NASA, said the agency would continue to honor those whose histories have long been overlooked. (Waller, 6/24)
Mary Jackson began her career in the 1950s in a segregated computing unit at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., that recently drew national attention as the setting for the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures,” based on a book by the same name. ...The news came the same day some in the space industry began to push NASA to change the name of the Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi, named for John C. Stennis, the longtime senator from Mississippi, a segregationist who opposed racial equality and the integration of schools. (Davenport, 6/24)
