NASA announced its decision last year to rename the building in Jackson's honor. Jackson worked for NASA for 34 years, starting as a research mathematician and eventually becoming the agency's first Black female engineer. In 2019, Jackson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor. Jackson was one of the subjects of the book Hidden Figures, which was turned into the 2016 film of the same name which detailed the contributions of Black women to early space flight. The women were so-called human computers who did the complex calculations that made space travel possible.

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