Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-216) and index.

Setting the Scene -- A Door Opens -- Mobilization -- A New Beginning -- The Double V -- The "Colored" Computers -- War Birds -- The Duration -- Breaking Barriers -- No Limits -- The Area Rule -- An Exceptional Mind -- Turbulence -- Progress -- Young, Gifted, and Black -- What a Difference a Day Makes -- Writing the Textbook on Space -- With All Deliberate Speed -- Model Behavior -- Degrees of Freedom -- Out of the Past, the Future -- America Is for Everybody -- One Small Step.

Explores the previously uncelebrated but pivotal contributions of NASA's African-American women mathematicians to America's space program, describing how Jim Crow laws segregated them from their white counterparts despite their groundbreaking successes.