Bathroom signs (Symbol)
In Hidden Figures, “colored” signs symbolize the indignities of segregation imposed on the West Computers. When Butler makes the decision to hire black women, “Butler took the next step, making a note to add another item to Sherwood’s seemingly endless requisition list: a metal bathroom sign bearing the words COLORED GIRLS.” These signs aren't removed from Langley until many years later. Miriam Mann steals the “COLORED COMPUTERS” signs from the Langley dining hall until the NACA stops replacing the signs. Hidden Figures mentions these signs strategically to illustrate the small reminders black computers faced: they might be brilliant mathematicians, but they're still not allowed to use a white toilet.
Sputnik (Symbol)
Sputnik was the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the USSR in 1957. In Hidden Figures, Sputnik symbolizes America falling behind in the space race. While Langley struggles with COLORED GIRLS bathroom signs, the USSR accomplishes space flight, presaging over a decade of one-upmanship—a fight in which the US is limited by their inability to maximize on their assets, namely women and people of color whose brilliant minds are ignored.
Breaking barriers (Motif)
Breaking barriers is a motif that recurs throughout the novel. Both physical and social barriers are broken throughout. Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier, and Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon. Mary Jackson's son, Levi Jr., is "the first colored boy in history" to win the peninsula's soapbox derby, and when Jackson is unable to rise further as an engineer, she changes to an administrative role, devoting the rest of her professional life to breaking that "glass ceiling" barrier for the women who follow her. Chapter 19 ends with the reflection that "the best thing about breaking a barrier was that it would never have to be broken again."
The veil (symbol)
In Hidden Figures, and in American literature more broadly, a “veil” is used as a symbol for black politeness. On page 109, Shetterly writes: "Most blacks automatically put on a mask around whites, a veil that...offered protection against the constant reminders of being at once American, and the American dilemma. It obscured the anger that blacks knew could have life-changing—even life-ending—consequences if displayed openly."
Katherine Johnson's Life (Symbol)
When Johnson hand-checks the IBM computer's calculations for John Glenn's orbit of Earth, she becomes the most famous human computer at NASA, black or white. Shetterly writes that “Katherine Johnson had always been a great believer in progress, and in February 1962, once again, she became its symbol.” Johnson might not be a symbol in the novel itself, as she's one of its protagonists, but for the American people, she is a symbol of progress—though in her eyes, she was just doing her job.
