When I was a child in Georgia, my mother would say, “drink some water now,” and “use the bathroom before we go,” so that when we got downtown, we would not have to drink from the water fountain for colored people, or use the segregated restroom. Recently, when I saw “Hidden Figures,” a remarkable film about three African-American women at NASA that takes place in the early 1960s, powerful moments throughout the movie transported me back to those days. In the movie, the character played by Octavia Spencer tells her children, while they are sitting at the back of a bus, that she’s a taxpaying citizen and has a right to take a book from the library.

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