Nailah Porter

Remember, James Baldwin talks about the 1965 voting rights Act. it was not guaranteed 60 years later they took it away.

“Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherf*cker who plays it is 80 percent.” — Miles Davis

In 1930, rural Virginia, a Black girl born into sharecropping poverty wasn't supposed to leave the tobacco fields. But Gladys Mae Brown had other plans.... Her hands picked crops. Her mind solved equations no one asked her to solve. Her parents, despite barely scraping by, made a choice that defied every expectation placed on them. They kept her in school. She became valedictorian at a segregated high school with torn textbooks and broken windows. She earned a scholarship to Virginia State College in an era when being Black, female, and intellectually brilliant meant the world tried to crush you three different ways. In 1956, she walked through the doors of the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren as the second Black woman they'd ever hired. Four Black employees. Hundreds of white men. Most didn't think she'd survive the week. They were catastrophically wrong. Gladys calculated weapons trajectories by hand. Complex differential equations that consumed hours of meticulous work. Her accuracy became legendary. When computers arrived, she didn't resist the future. She learned Fortran. She mastered programming languages. She transformed weeks of calculations into hours. Then came Seasat in the 1970s. The first satellite studying Earth's oceans from orbit. She became project manager. But her true contribution remained hidden in the mathematics. For GPS to function, you need Earth's exact shape. Not close. Exact. Earth isn't a smooth sphere. It's an asymmetrical, gravity-distorted, irregular mass of mountains and ocean trenches. Gladys spent years constructing mathematical models describing every deviation, every curve, every gravitational anomaly of our planet's true form. She analyzed satellite data. She built geoid models. Tedious, invisible, revolutionary work. That mathematics became the foundation of GPS. Every navigation app. Every emergency rescue. Every autonomous vehicle. Every precision farming system. Her equations make it possible. Forty-two years at Dahlgren. Retirement in 1998. GPS fully operational worldwide. Billions of users. Almost nobody knew her name. She raised three children. Earned her PhD at seventy after surviving a stroke. Lived quietly. Until 2018, when someone at a sorority event read her biography aloud. The room went silent. The story exploded. At eighty-eight, Gladys West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. The world finally learned her name. She mapped the entire planet. Then everyone forgot. Until they remembered. Gladys West worked alongside her husband Ira West, who was also a mathematician at the Naval Proving Ground. They met at Dahlgren and built both a family and parallel careers in an environment that actively discriminated against them. After retirement, she didn't stop. She earned her PhD from Virginia Tech at age 70, proving that intellectual curiosity doesn't have an expiration date. The GPS system relies on something called the geoid, a mathematical model of Earth's shape that accounts for gravitational variations. Gladys West's calculations helped create these models by analyzing millions of data points from satellite altimetry. Without accurate geoid models, GPS coordinates would be off by hundreds of meters, making the technology essentially useless. Her story remained hidden partly because classified military work doesn't generate headlines. Many pioneers of satellite and navigation technology worked in obscurity for national security reasons. The sorority member who recognized her contribution was reading through Alpha Kappa Alpha biographies when she noticed the GPS connection and brought it to public attention. © Women Stories #drthehistories

'The radical work of the musician and composer was dismissed by sexist critics and overshadowed by the legacy of her late husband John. But today, musical stars from Doja Cat to David Byrne all champion her experimental sound.' theguardian.com/music/2026/mar…

Sesame Street was originally created for Black Americans By Black Americans… Long before it became “universal,” it was a radical project to teach, empower, and represent a community too long ignored. History often forgets who it was really for.

Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-85, is now open at the Getty Center! Hear directly from some of the trailblazing artists who helped shape a new vision of Black life and liberation. 📸

@okayplayer WOW!!! Definitely a legend in the world of sound! Thank you for blessing us!

We are saddened to announce the passing of Bob Power, legendary engineer, producer & musician whose work help defined hip‑hop & R&B. From A Tribe Called Quest & De La Soul to The Roots, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, his influence shaped generations. A mentor & teacher at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute, Bob inspired countless artists & engineers. More than an engineer, he was a bridge between worlds blending technical mastery with soul & rhythm. His legacy echoes in every beat, every mix. Rest easy, Bob 🕊

“Over the last 40 years, the United States has been exposed to something that our biology was never intended to handle,” warns former FDA Commissioner David Kessler. cbsn.ws/4qGYDFT

A judge ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts capitalbnews.org/cancer-alley-r…

Pauline Copes Johnson, a descendant of Harriet Tubman, has died at 98. She spent a lifetime guarding that legacy from the small city where Tubman spent her final years kolumnmagazine.com/2025/12/11/the…

So much beauty!! W H E W🙌🏾

Minnijean Brown-Trickey is one of the original members of the Little Rock Nine, the teenagers who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Now in her 80s, she visits schools and community centers to deliver living history lessons. "What makes me interested in interacting with young people is because I know who I was, and I value that in young people," Brown-Trickey told us for #BriefButSpectacular. "I just want them to know that they are capable of so much and that they don't have to tolerate things the way they are."

Dr. Gladys West, the Black mathematician whose brilliance made GPS possible, has passed at 95. Born on a Dinwiddie County farm during the Great Depression, she overcame segregation to become a scientist and map the world—literally. May we never forget her legacy or the path she paved for generations of mathematicians.

@Matthew10123696 @BerniceKing Malcolm X was not focused on forcing anyone to accept us. In fact it was the opposite. His focus was on disrupting oppressive systems and protecting our communities as we collectively moved toward freedom and self-determination.

@BerniceKing This strip would have been more accurate if it was Malcolm X, while they both strive for the same goal, they both went about it different ways. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in a more peaceful educational way. While Malcolm X was more if they don't accept us, we'll force them 2

A cartoon about my father from the 1960s. At the time he was assassinated, a poll reflected that he was one of the most hated men in the United States. Today, his message has been distorted by many who would have hated him then, but evoke him now to deter justice and truth. #MLKDay #MLK #TheKingCenter #HistoryMatters #ReThinkKing

the most dangerous group of people the u.s. has ever known, was not the klan, it was black people wanting to help others.

Listening to Alice Coltrane on harp feels like stepping into a serene, mysterious universe.

I'm going to be free . 😎

Arrested Development × Cadillac Chronicles

@seyikanbai That commentator was on his J.O.B. He was hyped!!

i got goosebumps watching this, so beautiful ☺️

Had a blast at my homecoming! Hadn’t seen my roommate in 40 years! What a beautiful Spartan reunion!!! #SpartanPride #UNCG #Homecoming2025