What was it like growing up as an African American in the segregated south? Professor Nathaniel Whitaker teaches math at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and he grew up in Newport News, Virginia, the same town that Katherine Johnson of Hidden Figures lived. Whitaker will talk about his personal experience of the Jim Crow laws, his connections to the women in Hidden Figures, and trace his family back to enslaved workers. Waltham Public Library, Thursday, July 18 at 6:30 pm.