'Hidden Figures' Gets Free Screenings Across America For Black History Month
Hidden Figureswill be screened for free throughout movie theaters across the country.
FOX and AMC Theaters have arranged a series of free screenings of the Oscar nominated film on February 18, in celebration of Black History Month.
14 U.S. cities have been confirmed for the free screenings: Atlanta, Baltimore, The Bronx, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Oakland, St. Louis, Miami, and Washington, D.C. Tickets will be given on a first come first served basis. Tickets are available here.
Schools and non profit organizations can also apply to have the film screened in their town too.
Hidden Figures tells the stories of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson (who are portrayed by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, respectively). The women were black mathematicians who began working for NASA in the 1950s, and contributed significantly to the Space Race against the Soviet Union.
The film has already had a notable impact on young black women, most notably Tiera Guinn.
Guinn is a 22-year-old MIT student that is currently serving as a Rocket Structural Design and Analysis Engineer for the Space Launch System that aerospace company Boeing is building for NASA.
"I'm designing for the largest, most powerful rocket ever in history," Guinn said in an interview with WBRC. "I design components for the rocket itself, and I analyze them and make sure that they're structurally sound, which means that they don't break or they don’t deform."
The origin of Guinn's interest in becoming an engineer started as a child, when her mother had her clip coupons that they used at the grocery store. Before getting to the cash register Guinn already had to calculate the total (including tax) of the groceries. This, along with the realization that she wanted to design planes at a young age, led to her becoming an engineer.
But Hidden Figures has also played a part in that, with Guinn referring to it as her "favorite movie."