What distinguishes Kenner’s story slightly from these others is the nature of her work.

The women of “Hidden Figures” worked within institutions — NASA and its predecessor, NACA — that had specific formal structures even if those structures operated in racially discriminatory ways.

Jemison and Jackson worked within universities and NASA, again with institutional structures that could be navigated if not always fairly.

Kenner worked largely independently, as a private inventor, navigating not an institutional hierarchy but the market — a context in which the barriers were less formal and perhaps for that reason more insidious.

There is no formal bureaucracy to appeal to when a manufacturing company walks away from a deal because of your race.