CeCe on Gladys West

Transcript

Exactly as spoken. Tap a line to play from there.

So you know that little blue dot on your phone, the one that always knows exactly where you are? And somebody had to do the math for that, and her name was Gladys West.

Now mind you, this is a Black woman from rural Virginia, born in the, working at a naval base back when they still had her sitting in a segregated section. But she was one of only four Black employees on that whole base.

And she spent years modeling the actual shape of the Earth, by hand, because the computers back then could not do it without her. So every single time your map finds you, that is her math.

Long story short, they did not put her name on it, and she did not get recognized until she was in her eighties.