You can't change history. These things happened the way they did. What you can change is how you look at it and how you understand that it takes the good moments and it takes the difficult moments to move forward.

For too long, history has imposed a binary condition on its black citizens: either nameless or renowned, menial or exceptional, passive recipients of the forces of history or superheroes who acquire mythic status not just because of their deeds but because of their scarcity.

Our next-door neighbour taught physics at Hampton University. Our church abounded with mathematicians. Supersonics experts held leadership positions in my mother's sorority, and electrical engineers sat on the board of my parents' college alumni associations.

Katherine Johnson actually integrated the public university in West Virginia. And Mary Jackson had to petition state courts to be allowed to attend an all-white college to get the qualifications needed to become an engineer. At every turn, these women were involved in the Second World War, the Cold War, the civil rights movement.

The Russians had got a real head-start into space; America was playing catch-up.

Without imagination, I don't think there's any progress.