Allison Schroeder

I plan on being an engineer at NASA, but I can't do that without taking them classes at that all-white high school, and I can't change the color of my skin, so I have no choice, but to be the first, which I can't do without you, sir. Your honor, out of all the cases you gon hear today, which one is gon matter hundred years from now? Which one is gon make you the first?

Oh, I'll tell you where to begin: Three Negro women chasing a white police officer down a highway in Hampton, Virginia in 1961. Ladies, that there is a God-ordained miracle!

Every time we get a chance to get ahead they move the finish line. Every time.

Mr. Zielinski, I'm a negro woman. I'm not gonna entertain the impossible.

I wouldn't have to. I'd already be one.

We go from being our father's daughters, to our husband's wives to our babies' mothers...

She's not married. She's a widow, with three beautiful little girls. So well behaved. Angels on earth is what we like to call them. Dorothy, slice of pie?

There are no colored bathrooms in this building, or any building outside the West Campus, which is half a mile away. Did you know that? I have to walk to Timbuktu just to relieve myself! And I can't use one of the handy bikes. Picture that, Mr. Harrison. My uniform, skirt below the knees and my heels and simple necklace pearls. Well, I don't own pearls. Lord knows you don't pay the colored enough to afford pearls! And I work like a dog day and night, living on coffee from a pot none of you want to touch! So, excuse me if I have to go to the restroom a few times a day.

What do you mean?

Oh Mr. Johnson, if I were you, I'd quit talking right now.

I don't mean no disrespect.

I will have you know, I was the first Negro female student at West Virginia University graduate school. On any given day, I analyze the velometer levels for air displacement, friction and velocity. And compute over ten thousand calculations by cosine, square root and lately analytic geometry by hand. There are twenty, bright, highly capable Negro women in the west computing group, and we're proud to be doing our part for the country. So yes, they let women do some things at NASA, Mr. Johnson. And it's not because we wear skirts, it's because we wear glasses. Have a good day.

Button it up Mary. No one wants to go to jail behind your mouth.