Newsmakers, January 11, 2018

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• Duchess Harris

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  The speaker at this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in La Crosse is the granddaughter of one of the African-American female mathematicians working for NASA who gained notoriety from the book and movie “Hidden Figures.”

  Duchess Harris has had a successful career of her own as an author, civil rights activist and chair of the American studies program at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

  Harris grew up with the family history that was known to very few until recently.

  “The movie had a very important role of making this story everyday knowledge. In 2016, if you asked most Americans if they knew this happened, not only would they have said no, they probably wouldn’t have even believed that it happened. Now, people who haven’t even seen the movie, know that it least occurred,” she said.

  Harris wrote her own book on the subject aimed at high school students called “Hidden Human Computers” that she has adapted to a play that will be staged by a Minnesota theater company. The play tells a different version of events that focus even more on the struggles the women had working for NASA.

  But whether it’s past struggles like those of Harris’ grandmother and colleagues, or current issues like police treatment of African-Americans, the rise in alt-right and white nationalist groups, and light shed on problems of sexual harassment and assault by the #MeToo movement, Harris said she’s inspired by the fact that negative actions often have positive reactions.

  “The notion that we are going to stand for institutional, systematic patriarchy, for instance, I think that there is tremendous movement against that right now,” she said. “Often, when you have what people find to be difficult times, you have resistance to that. That’s what history has taught us.”

  Harris said her talk will focus on elements of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, such as his critique of hyper-capitalism and hyper-militarism that were present in the 1960s and are topics that still have relevance today.

  – John Davis

• Mariah Idrissi

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