In the Book
In the Movie
In September 1960 Katherine Johnson and Ted Skopinski published their Azimuth Angle report which was used to place a satellite over a selected Earth position.
Katherine is shown putting her name on a report along with another engineer. The engineer objected as computors never got credit for their work in reports at that time.
This does not happen in the book.
Dorothy Vaughan is chastised by a white woman for being in the white's section of the library. She is escorted out by a police officer, but not before stealing a book on Fortran programming.
Two weeks after being hired in 1953, Katherine Johnson is sent to Bldg 1244 to work with engineers along with Erma Tynes. This is done at the request of one of the male engineers. Virginia Tucker, the actual Supervisor got along well with the colored computors.
She is sent to work in the engineer's office in 1961 at the request of Vivian Mitchel (composite character). She tells Katherine they’ve never had a colored person in that department and not to embarrass her.
Of the black employees working in research at Langley, only 5 were engineers and 16 titled as mathematicians. Floyd Thompson wrote to James Webb lamenting that “very few Negroes” were applying for science and engineering positions at Langley due to the segregated nature of the surrounding community.
Not addressed in the movie.
Eunice Smith was Katherine Johnson's companion and confidante (and carpool) while working for NASA. Nothing about interacting with the police on the road.
Dorothy Vanghan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson are shown carpooling to work in 1961; the car has stopped running and they are parked on the side of the road. A white police officer stops to check their ID and while initially suspicious is delighted to hear that they are involved in the space program. He escorts them to work after Dorothy gets the car started. Eunice Smith is not in the movie.