2026 SESSION
ENROLLED
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 296
Commending Margot Lee Shetterly.
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, March 10, 2026
Agreed to by the Senate, March 12, 2026
WHEREAS, Margot Lee Shetterly is a native of Hampton, resident of Charlottesville, and the acclaimed author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race ; and
WHEREAS, Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures chronicles the lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, Black women who were mathematicians at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the time of segregation; and
WHEREAS, Hidden Figures reached number one on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers list and was awarded Best Nonfiction Book at the NAACP Image Awards in 2017; and
WHEREAS, Margot Lee Shetterly grew up in Hampton, where her father worked at NASA's Langley Research Center, giving her early exposure to the individuals and stories that would later go into Hidden Figures ; and
WHEREAS, Margot Lee Shetterly worked closely with Katherine Johnson and her family and conducted many hours of archival research to tell a rich, compelling, and factual story in Hidden Figures ; and