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Science and Technology

Kristine Krapp
Genevieve Slomski

• Early African American Inventors

• Early African American Scientists

• African Americans in Medicine

• African Americans in Air and Space

• Modern Contributions to Science and Technology

• Engineers, Mathematicians, Inventors, Physicians, and Scientists

EARLY AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS

Perhaps in science more than in other areas, African Americans have been afforded few sanctioned opportunities to offer contributions. However, will and intelligence helped individuals bring their ideas and dreams into the light. The Industrial Revolution swept African Americans along just as dramatically as it did the rest of the world. Though not all of them became household names, African Americans have made their mark in science and technology. For example, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he chose Lewis Latimer to draft the plans. Later, Latimer became a member of the Edison Pioneers, a group of inventors who worked for Thomas Edison from 1884 to 1912.

One of the earliest African American stars of science was Benjamin Banneker, a free African American who lived in the 1700s. Considered the first African American scientist, Banneker was an expert in mathematics and astronomy, both of which he studied during his friendship with an influential white Quaker neighbor. In 1754, Banneker constructed what has been considered the first grandfather clock made in the United States. Later, Banneker and the Quaker’s son were selected to lay the plans for the city of Washington, D.C. Thus, not only was Banneker the first African American to receive a presidential appointment, he was one of the first African American civil engineers. In the early 1790s, his almanac—a year-long calendar loaded with weather and astronomical information that was especially useful to farmers—was published with much success. New editions were issued for several years.

In 1790, the U.S. government passed the U.S. Patent Act, legislation that extended patent rights to inventors, including free blacks. Slaves would not have this right until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. In one of history’s most absurd bureaucratic fiats, slaves could neither be granted patents nor could they assign patents to their masters. The underlying theory was that since slaves were not citizens, they could not enter into contracts with their owners or the government. As a result, the efforts of slaves were dismissed or credited to their masters. One can only speculate on the extent to which slaves were active in invention. For example, Joe Anderson, a slave, was believed to have played a major role in the creation of a grain harvester, or reaper, that his master Cyrus McCormick was credited with inventing, but available records are insufficient to determine the degree to which Anderson was involved. Similarly, Benjamin Montgomery, a slave belonging to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, is thought to have concocted an improved boat propeller. Since the race of patent-seekers was rarely noted and other African American inventions such as ice cream, created by Augustus Jackson

of Philadelphia in 1832, were simply never patented, one cannot be sure how many inventions were made by free blacks either.

The first free blacks to have their inventions recorded were Thomas L. Jennings, whose dry-cleaning methodology received patent protection in 1821, and Henry Blair who invented a seed planter in 1834. Free black Norbert Rillieux patented his sugar refining evaporator, thus revolutionizing the industry. The son of a French planter and a slave woman, Rillieux left his home in New Orleans to study engineering in Paris. After teaching mathematics there and experimenting with steam evaporation, he created his vacuum pan evaporator. With his invention, a single person could do work that once required several people working at once. He returned to the United States and became wealthy as the device was implemented in sugar refineries in his home state and abroad in Cuba and Mexico. However, racial tensions in the United States wore on him, and in 1854, he moved to France, where he spent the remainder of his life.

In 1848, free black Lewis Temple invented the toggle harpoon for killing whales, a major industry at the time. Temple’s invention almost completely replaced the type of harpoon formerly used as it greatly diminished the mammal’s ability to escape after being hooked. Prior to the Civil War, Henry Boyd created an improved bed frame, and James Forten, one of the few African Americans from that era to gain extreme wealth from an invention, produced a device that helped guide ship sails. He used the money he earned to expand his sail factory.

The Reconstruction era opened the door to creativity that had been suppressed in African Americans. Between 1870 and 1900, a time when nearly 80% of African American adults in the United States were illiterate, African Americans were awarded several hundred patents. Elijah McCoy worked as a locomotive fireman on a Michigan line lubricating the hot steam engines during scheduled train stops. After years of work, in 1872, McCoy perfected and patented an automatic lubricator that regularly supplied oil to the engine as the train was in motion. The effect on the increasingly important railway system was profound as conductors were no longer forced to make oiling stops. McCoy adapted his invention for use on ships and in factories. When copycats tried to steal his invention, the phrase “the real McCoy” came into vogue.

In 1884, Granville T. Woods invented an improved steam boiler furnace in his Cincinnati electrical engineering shop. Three years later, Woods patented an induction telegraph or “synchronous multiplex railway telegraph,” that allowed train personnel to communicate with workers on other trains while in motion. He was also responsible for what later became known as the trolley when he produced an overhead electrical power supply system for streetcars and trains. A prolific inventor, Woods, known as “The Black Edison,” patented more than 60 valuable inventions, including an airbrake, which he eventually sold to George Westinghouse.

Jan Matzeliger came to the United States from South America in 1877. Living in Lynn, Massachusetts, he obtained work in a shoe factory. There he witnessed the tedious process by which shoe soles were attached to shoe uppers by workers known as hand lasters. For six months he secretly labored at inventing a machine to automate the work. Unsatisfied with his original design, he spent several more years tweaking and perfecting his creation so that by the time he was granted a patent in 1883, the equipment was so successful that manufacturers the world over clamored for the gadgetry.

Progress has been a gift from women as well as men: Sarah Goode is credited with creating a folding cabinet bed in 1885; Sarah Boone invented the ironing board in 1892; and photographer Claytonia Dorticus was granted several patents that were concerned with photographic equipment and developing solutions as well as a shoe dye. But Madame C. J. Walker, often regarded only as an entrepreneur, was one of the most successful female inventors. She developed an entire line of hair care products and cosmetics for African Americans, claiming that her first idea had come to her in a dream.

During the next few years, Garrett Morgan patented a succession of products, including a hair straightening solution that was still a bestseller in as late as the 1970s; a gas mask, or breathing device, for firefighters; and an improved traffic signal. Morgan tried to pass himself off as Native American. However, once his identity as an African American was discovered, several of his purchase orders were canceled.

Nonetheless, the early inventors paved the way for future African Americans. These men and women, as well as the countless unknown ones, were forced to endure the byproducts of racism. Whites were oftentimes hesitant to buy African American inventions unless the reality of eventual monetary gains was too strong to ignore. McCoy, Woods, and several others died poor, although their creations sold extremely well.

EARLY AFRICAN AMERICAN SCIENTISTS

The contributions of African American scientists are better known than those of African American inventors, partly because of the recognition awarded to George Washington Carver, an agriculturalist, who refused to patent most of his inventions. Born into slavery in 1864, Carver was the first African American to graduate from Iowa Agricultural State College, where he studied botany and agriculture. One year after earning a master’s degree, Carver joined Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department. In his role as department head, he engineered a number of experimental farming techniques that had practical applications for farmers in the area. Through his ideas, from crop rotation to replenishment of nutrient-starved soil to his advocacy of peanuts as a cash crop, Carver left an indelible mark in his field. An inventor at heart, he was behind the genesis of innumerable botanical products, byproducts, and even recipes. Recognition of his efforts came in several forms including induction into England’s Royal Society of Arts and Manufacturing and Commerce in 1916. In 1923, he received an NAACP Spingarn Medal. In 1949, six years after his death, Carver was the subject of a U.S. postal stamp.

Born approximately 10 years before Carver earned his bachelor’s degree, Ernest Everett Just was a pioneering marine biologist who had graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1907. The first-ever recipient of a Spingarn Medal in 1915, his first paper was published as “The Relation of First Cleavage Plane to the Entrance Point of the Sperm” in 1912. The work showed how the location of cell division in the marine worm Nereis is determined by the sperm’s entry point on an egg. Just did the majority of his research at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he spent many summers. Teaching at Howard for many years, he had a tenuous relationship with the school, paving the way for him to accept an offer to conduct research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin, Germany. The first American to be invited to the internationally respected institution and remained there from 1929 to 1933, at which point the Nazi regime was surging to power. Because he preferred working abroad to being shut out of the best laboratories in the United States on the basis of race, Just spent the rest of his career in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

African Americans have had successes in engineering and mathematics as well. In 1876, Edward Bouchet became the first African American to earn a doctorate from a university in the United States, when he acquired a Ph.D. in physics from Yale. In the twentieth century, Elmer Samuel Imes, husband of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen, received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan in 1918. In his dissertation, Imes took the works of white scientists Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, and Niels Bohr, one step further, definitively establishing that quantum theory applied to the rotational states of molecules. His efforts would later play a role in space science.

Chemist Percy Julian carved a brilliant career for himself after obtaining a doctorate from Switzerland’s University of Vienna in 1931. His specialty was creating synthetic versions of expensive drugs. Much of his work was conducted at his Julian Research Institute in Franklin Park, Illinois. In the 1940s, another scientist, Benjamin Peery, switched his focus from aeronautical engineering to physics while still an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. After garnering a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Peery went on to a lengthy career teaching astronomy at Indiana University, the University of Illinois, and Howard University.

Between 1875 and 1943, only eight African Americans were awarded doctorates in pure mathematics. David Blackwell became the first tenured African American professor at the University of California at Berkeley in 1955. An expert in statistics and probability, he was a trailblazer despite a racially motivated setback he incurred soon after completing his doctoral work at the University of Illinois. Nominated for a Rosenwald Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, Blackwell was rejected because of his race. Undaunted, he went on to become the only African American mathematician to be elected into the National Academy of Sciences.

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN MEDICINE

The medical profession has yielded a number of African Americans of high stature. As early as the 1860s, African Americans had entered medical schools in the North and had gone on to practice as full-fledged physicians. In fact, during the Civil War, Dr. Alexander T. Augusta was named head of a Union army hospital and Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first female African American doctor by graduating from the New England Female Medical College in Boston. She was able to attend on a scholarship that she received from Ohio Sen. Benjamin Wade, an abolitionist. She used her schooling to provide health care to former slaves in the former confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Her 1883 Book of Medical Discourses taught women how to address their own health issues, as well as those of their children.

Rebecca J. Cole was the second African American woman to become a physician and the first African American graduate of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. For over 50 years, she devoted her life to improving the lot of the poor. Her positions included performing a residency at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and running Washington, D.C.’s Government House for Children and Old Women and Philadelphia’s Woman’s Directory, a medical aid center.

In 1867, Susan McKinney Steward began studying at the New York Medical College for Women. Three years later, she earned the distinction of being the third African American female physician in the United States and the first in New York State. She specialized in homeopathic treatments and had black and white patients of both genders as clients. After opening a second office in New York City, she helped co-found the Brooklyn Women’s Hospital and Dispensary. She also served at the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People. Steward vigorously supported the women’s suffrage movement and conducted missionary work with her second husband, a chaplain for the Buffalo Soldier regiment. She ended her career by taking on the role of school doctor at Wilberforce University.

In 1868, Howard University opened its College of Medicine, the first African American medical school in the country. The school nearly failed five years later when monetary problems arose and salaries for faculty were

unavailable. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Charles Purvis, who convinced the school to let him and his peers continue teaching on a non-paid basis, the school survived the crisis. Purvis was later appointed chief surgeon of Washington, D.C.’s Freedman’s Hospital. Purvis was thus the first African American to run a civilian hospital. He did so until 1894, when he began a private practice.

Meanwhile, in 1876, Nashville’s Meharry Medical College was founded. Despite the decidedly low number of jobs for African American physicians who were routinely turned away from nearly every facility other than Freedman’s Hospital, the school was another sign of the slowly developing progress by African American physicians including Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who replaced Purvis at Freedman’s. Williams advanced Freedman’s through internships, better nurses’ training, and the addition of horse-drawn ambulances.

Williams had graduated from the Chicago Medical College in 1883, and entered into private practice almost immediately. Business was slow until 1890, when he met Emma Reynolds, an aspiring African American nurse, whose skin color had kept her from gaining admission to any of the nursing schools in Chicago. Inspired by her unfortunate dilemma, Williams decided to operate his own hospital in hopes of initiating his own program for aspiring nurses. With 12 beds, Provident Hospital became the first African American operated facility in the United States, and Reynolds was the first to enroll in Williams’s classes. Near the end of his career, Williams was appointed the first African American associate surgeon at Chicago’s St. Luke Hospital and later was the only African American charter member of the American College of Surgeons. During his career, Williams helped convince 40 hospitals to treat African American patients.

African Americans in the South also received improved care in the late 1890s, thanks to Alice Woodby McKane and her spouse, who was also a doctor. In 1893, they founded the first training school for African American nurses—in Savannah, Georgia. McKane had obtained her medical degree one year earlier from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1895, the couple set up their first hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, before establishing the McKane Hospital for Women and Children in Georgia the following year.

Progress moved westward as another African American woman used her training to benefit the region’s African American population, though her patients transcended all racial barriers. Beginning in 1902, Denver’s “Baby Doctor,” Justina Ford, proudly served her community as the only African American physician in Colorado for over 50 years. An obstetrician, she delivered more than 7,000 babies, conducting most of her business by house calls.

Back in the East, Freedman’s Hospital was the training ground for future head trauma authority, Dr. Louis Wright, a Harvard Medical School graduate whose high academic standing meant nothing to Boston area hospitals that refused to hire African Americans. When World War I erupted, Wright enlisted and found himself in charge of his unit’s surgical ward. After the war, Wright, who had received a Purple Heart, became the first African American physician to work in a New York City hospital when he was appointed to Harlem Hospital in 1919. Later he became director of surgery, president of the medical board, and was admitted to the American College of Surgeons. In 1948, four years before his death in 1952, he founded the Cancer Research Foundation at Harlem Hospital. The son of two physicians, his father and his stepfather, the latter of whom was the first African American graduate of Yale Medical School, Wright had two daughters who continued the family legacy by becoming doctors.

An almost legendary legacy was created by Dr. Charles R. Drew, a star high school athlete whose interest lay in medicine. A pathologist and expert on blood transfusions, Drew discovered that blood plasma was easier to store than whole blood and was compatible with all blood types. His experiments helped him receive a M.D. in 1940. During World War II, he helped Great Britain develop a national blood collection program, and was later asked to do the same for the U.S. Armed Forces. Unfortunately, racism reared its ugly head again—African American donors were first completely excluded from the program, and later were only allowed to donate to other African American servicemen. Frustrated, Drew withdrew from the program, briefly resuming his teaching career at Howard before joining the staff of Freedman’s Hospital as medical director.

Howard continued developing new talents. Dr. Roland Scott, a physician at Howard University’s College of Medicine, became a pioneer in the study and treatment of sickle cell anemia. His research was pivotal in drawing public attention to the disorder and prompting the U.S. government to devote money to more extensive study. Under the Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act passed in 1972, Congress forced the National Institutes of Health to set up treatment centers for patients. Scott was named director of the program that involved screening as well as treatment for those already afflicted.

In recent years, African Americans have made great strides in the fields of medicine. Alexa Canady became the first African American neurosurgeon in 1975. She continues to be a leader and innovator in the areas of craniofacial abnormalities, epilepsy, hydrocephalus, pediatric neurosurgery, and tumors of spinal cord and brain. She has also contributed to special research topics such as assist in the development of neuroendoscopic equipment, evaluating programmable pressure change valves in hydrocephalus, head injury, hydrocephalus and shunts, neuroendoscopy, and pregnancy complications of shunts. Another African American neurosurgeon who advanced the field to new heights was Dr. Ben Carson. In 1987, Carson led a 70-member surgical team at Johns Hopkins Hospital to separate Siamese twins who were joined at the cranium. A surgery like this had never been attempted before, but Carson was able to not only perform the surgery but also was able to save both twins with minimal brain damage.

Canady and Carson changed the way the medical profession handled injuries and complications to the brain. Ten years after Carson’s groundbreaking surgery, a pair of doctors changed the way that the medical community dealt with the subject of multiple births. Drs. Paula Mahone and Karen Drake are heads of a team of 40 specialists involved in the delivery of the McCaughey septuplets at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, the first set of septuplets to be born and survive in the United States. Mahone, Drake, Canady, and Carter are but a few examples of the major new discoveries and achievements that African Americans have made in the medical field.

African Americans have also begun to break into positions of power and prestige in the medical community. In 1989, Renee Rosilind Jenkins became the first African American president of the Society of Adolescent Medicine. In 1990, Roselyn Epps took over as the first African American president of the American Medical Women’s Association and the first woman president of the DC Medical Society a year later. Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee was named the Dean of Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, making her the first African-American woman to lead a U.S. medical school.

These rises in positions in the medical community for African Americans were also seen on a national level. In 1993, Dr. Joycelyn Elders became the first African American to be appointed as U.S. Surgeon General. Six years later, in 1998, Dr. David Satcher was sworn in as both U.S. surgeon general and as assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN AIR AND SPACE

In 1920, Texan Bessie Coleman was accepted at the French flying school, École d’Aviation des Freres, following a string of rejections from aviation schools in the United States. Having completed seven months of instruction and a rigorous qualifying exam, she earned her international aviator’s license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale the following year and went on to study further with aircraft designer Anthony H. G. Fokker. Known to an admiring public as “Queen Bess,” Bessie Coleman was the first African American woman ever to fly an airplane, the first American to earn an international pilot’s license, and the first African American female stunt pilot. During her brief yet distinguished career as a performance flier, she appeared at air shows and exhibitions across the country, earning wide recognition for her aerial skill, dramatic flair, and tenacity. The tragic demise of the professional aviatrix occurred in 1926, when she was scheduled to parachute jump from a speeding plane at 2,500 feet. Ten minutes after takeoff, however, the plane careened wildly out of control, flipping over and dropping Coleman, who plunged 500 feet to her death. Though he remained in the aircraft, the pilot was instantly killed when the plane crashed to the ground. Later, a service wrench mistakenly left behind in the engine was found to have been the cause of the accident.

Six years later, in 1932, pilot James Herman Banning and mechanic Thomas C. Allen flew from Los Angeles to New York City in 41 hours and 27 minutes. The transcontinental flight was followed by the first round-trip transcontinental flight the next year. That feat was accomplished by Albert Ernest Forsythe and Charles Alfred Anderson, who flew from Atlantic City to Los Angeles and back in 11 days, foreshadowing the advent of commercial flight.

Willa B. Brown became the first African American woman to hold a commercial pilot’s license in the United States in 1934. She was also the first African American woman to ascend to the rank of lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol Squadron. Brown later founded the National Airmen’s Association of America, the first aviators group for African Americans. With her husband, Cornelius R. Coffey, she established the first African American-owned flying school—Coffey School of Aeronautics—and the first African American-owned school to receive certification from the Civil Aviation Authority. Brown became the first African American member of the Federal Aviation Agency’s Women’s Advisory Council in 1972.

The second African American woman to earn a full commercial pilot’s license was Janet Harmon Bragg, a Georgia nurse who took an interest in flying when she began dating Johnny Robinson, one of the first African American aviation instructors. The first woman of any race to be admitted to Chicago’s Curtiss Wright Aeronautical University, she was initially denied her commercial license despite having successfully fulfilled all preliminary requirements including the airborne portion of the test. Her white instructor from the Federal Aviation Administration made it quite clear, however, that he would not grant a license to an African American woman. Rather than give up, Bragg merely tested again with another instructor the same year and was granted her license in 1942. Along with a small group of African American aviation devotees, she formed the Challengers Air Pilots Association (CAPA). Together, members of CAPA opened an airport in Robins, Illinois, the first owned and operated by African Americans.

Other African American notables in the field of aviation include: Perry H. Young, who, in 1957 became the first African American pilot for a scheduled passenger commercial airline, New York Airways; Otis B. Young Jr., who, in 1970, was the first African American pilot of a jumbo jet; and former naval pilot Jill Brown, who became the first African American female to pilot for a major airline in 1987.

Military men were the first African Americans to enter into the line of space exploration. In 1961, U.S. Air Force Captain Edward Dwight was invited by President John F. Kennedy to apply to test-pilot school. Two years later, Dwight was in the midst of spaceflight training when Kennedy was assassinated. Without the president’s support, Dwight was pretty much ignored by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Air Force Major Robert H. Lawrence thus became the first African American astronaut a few years later. A doctor of physical chemistry, Lawrence was killed in a plane crash in December 1967, just six months after his selection by NASA. African Americans would not make inroads in space until the genesis of the Space Shuttle program.

African American scientists were, however, prevalent. For example, Katherine Johnson joined the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the precursor to NASA, in 1953. Initially, all she was asked to do was basic number crunching, but she spent a short period filling in at the Flight Research Division. There her valued interpretation of data helped in the making of prototype spacecraft, and she soon developed into an aerospace technologist. She developed trajectories for the Apollo moon-landing project and devised emergency navigational methods for astronauts. She retired in 1986.

Emergencies of another sort have been tackled by air force flight surgeon Vance Marchbanks, whose research showed that adrenaline levels could affect the exhaustion level of flight crews. His work brought him to the attention of NASA, and he became a medical observer for NASA’s Project Mercury. Along with several other personnel scattered about the globe, Marchbanks, stationed in Nigeria, was responsible for monitoring pioneering astronaut John Glenn’s vital signs as he orbited the earth in 1962. Later, Marchbanks received the civilian post of chief of environmental health services for United Aircraft Corporation, where he had a hand in designing the space suit and medical monitoring systems used in the Apollo moon shot.

Also specializing in design, aeronautical test engineer Robert E. Shurney spent nearly his entire career, from 1968 to 1990, at the Marshall Space Flight Center, specializing in design utility. His products included refuse disposal units that stored solids in the bottom and liquid in tubes to prevent any materials from floating openly and contaminating an entire cabin. The units were used in the Apollo program, Skylab, and on the first space shuttle missions. He also crafted strong, yet lightweight, aluminum tires for the lunar rover. Much of his experimentation was conducted on KC-135 test planes in order to achieve the condition of weightlessness.

Assertiveness enabled O. S. Williams to bring forth his own achievements. In 1942, Williams talked his way into employment at Republic Aviation Corporation as part of the technical staff. Better known as Ozzie, he took the experience he earned there to NASA contractor Grumman Corporation. The small rocket engines that he co-developed saved the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts when the ship’s main rocket exploded during flight in 1970.

Three missions later, George Carruthers, a Naval Research Laboratory astrophysicist, designed the farultraviolet camera/spectograph for use on Apollo 16. The semiautomatic device was able to photograph deep space—regions too far to be captured by regular cameras—once set up on the surface of the moon. Carruthers, who earned a Ph.D. in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1964 and was granted his first patent in 1969 for an electromagnetic radiation image converter.

With a 1965 Ph.D. in atomic and molecular physics from Howard University, Carruther’s contemporary, George E. Alcorn, has been one of the most prominent people working with semiconductors and spectrometers. Working for private industry, including IBM and NASA, Alcorn has over 25 patents to his name including secret projects concerning missile systems.

In a less clandestine fashion, aerospace engineer Christine Darden has been a leading NASA researcher in supersonic and hypersonic aircraft. Her main goal has been the reduction of sonic boom, a phenomenon that creates an explosive burst of sound that can traumatize those on the ground. Darden works at manipulating an aircraft’s wing or the shape of its nose to try to control the feedback produced by air waves resulting from a plane’s flight.

Dealing with people rather than machinery, director of psychophysiology at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Patricia Cowings’ postdoctoral work has touched upon such fields as aerospace medicine and bioastronautics. Since the late 1970s, she has assisted astronauts by teaching them biofeedback techniques—how to impose mind over matter when zero gravity wreaks havoc with one’s system. By studying physical and emotional problems that arise in such a setting, she can seek the cause and prescribe a therapy to alleviate stress. She was also the first woman of any race in the United States to receive astronaut training.

These individuals are joined by numerous others in the field of aviation and space flight including chemical engineer Henry Allen Jr., a liquid and solid rocket fuel specialist; missile expert and inventor Otis Boykin; health services officer Julian Earls; aerospace technologist Isabella J. Coles; astrodynamicist Robert A. Gordon; and operations officer Isaac Gillam IV, to name a few. Once the Space Shuttle program began in earnest, however, African Americans also took to the skies.

In the field of astrophysics, Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of six books on astronomy and named one of the 50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science in 2004, is Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City—the youngest director in the planetarium’s history. His research interests include star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of the Milky Way.

Traveling in the Space Shuttle Challenger, U.S. Air Force Colonel Guion “Guy” Bluford was the first African American to fly in space, where he coordinated experiments and was in charge of deploying satellites. After his first mission in 1983, Bluford participated in three more. Astronaut Ronald McNair was aboard the tragic Challenger flight of 1986, his second trip on the shuttle. The vehicle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew members. Charles Bolden’s first mission was aboard the 1986 flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. He has also flown on the Discovery. The first African American to pilot a space shuttle was Frederick Drew Gregory, who

did so in 1985, on his first journey to outer space. A veteran pilot of both helicopters and airplanes, Gregory became an astronaut in 1979. Gregory also made history on his fourth flight, when he commanded the first mission comprised of Russians and Americans. Mae Jemison went into space as a science specialist in 1992’s joint U.S.Japanese project on the shuttle Endeavour. The following year, Bernard Harris took off in the Space Shuttle Columbia. He served as a mission specialist in Spacelab-D2, alongside Germans and Americans.

MODERN CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The achievements of African American inventors and scientists of the mid- to-late twentieth century have been obscured by reasons more complex than blatant racial prejudice. The main reasons include the advent of government and corporate research and development teams. Such work, whether contracted or direct, often precludes individual recognition, regardless of a person’s race. Nonetheless, in the corporate world as well as in academia, African American scientists and engineers play a substantial role in the development of solid state devices, high-powered and ultra-fast lasers, hypersonic flight—2,000–3,000 miles per hour—and elementary particle science. African American engineers employed by NASA in managerial and research positions have made, and continue to make, considerable contributions.

African American manufacturing and servicing firms in various computer and engineering areas have been established. For example, African American entrepreneur Marc Hannah has made a niche for himself in the field of computer graphics as cofounder of Silicon Graphics Incorporated. Chief scientist and vice president of the company, Hannah has adapted his electrical engineering and computer science know-how to a variety of applications including military flight simulators and CAT scan devices. In addition, his computer-generated, 3-D special effects have been featured in such major films as Terminator 2 (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Jurassic Park (1993).

Academia has more African American science and technology faculty members, college presidents, and school of engineering deans than in the past. Many of these academics are serving in the country’s most prestigious institutions. However, this progress has not continued, and there is cause for concern in the future. The 1970s was a decade of tremendous growth for minorities in science and engineering. In the 1980s, though, there was a progressive decline in the production of African American scientists, even though the numbers of Asian American and women scientists were still growing. In 1977, for example, people of color earned 13% of science and engineering doctorates, with Asian Americans at three percent of those. By 1993, 16% of the degrees went to people of color, and Asian Americans earned 7% of those degrees. In addition, women earned 40% of science and engineering doctorates in 1993, up from 25% in 1977. The numbers of African Americans entering scientific fields has slowly increased since the late 1980s, although they continue to be grossly underrepresented. Another area in which African Americans have been faltering is medicine.

In the mid- to late-1990s, the number of African American applicants to medical school was declining at a high rate. The search for potential African American physicians has been nearing crisis-level status. The repercussions of this shortage includes difficulty for the poor and elderly in finding African American attendants if they so desire. Primary care specialists—internists, pediatricians, obstetricians, gynecologists, etc.—were particularly in demand.

The health care profession began responding to this problem in 1991, when the Association of American Medical Colleges initiated Project 3000 by 2000—the primary aim being to graduate 3,000 minorities by the year 2000. In particular, Xavier University was the top school in the country for African American placement into medical school, gaining a reputation for placing an average of 70% of its premed seniors into medical schools each year. Meanwhile, African American doctors already in practice were forming cooperatives amongst themselves in order to serve those African American patients who were discriminated against by Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) that considered them too poor or sick to be participants.

The situation is not as dire in engineering, perhaps due in part to a mentoring program established in 1975, by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME). With industry backing, the council has focused on youngsters as early as the fourth-grade level. More than 4,700 of their students have acquired engineering degrees and their graduates make up 10% of all engineers from minority groups. However, there is some indication that fewer African Americans are entering engineering fields since 1980. As of 1996, about 29% of the college-age population was made up of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. This same group, though, accounted for less than 3% of engineering doctoral recipients.

Still, the importance of role models with names and faces cannot be overlooked. Some African American scientists have entered into the public consciousness; for example, in 1973, Shirley Ann Jackson became the first African American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics as well as the first female African American to earn a Ph.D. from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has had a distinguished career, culminating with her appointment as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Bill Clinton in 1995.

Another African American rose to the position of National Science Foundation (NSF) director, the highest science-related administrative post in the United States. Holder of a physics Ph.D. from St. Louis’s Washington University, Walter Massey was able to create a number of programs to provide science-oriented training to young African Americans. During his two-year stint at the NSF, from 1991 to 1993, Massey repeated the kind of success he had when he began the Inner City Teachers Science program while teaching at Brown University.

In the field of medical research, Charles Whitten founded the National Association for Sickle Cell Disease in 1971. His work has been complemented more recently by Griffin Rodgers, chief of the Molecular Hematology Unit at

the National Institutes of Health. In the 1990s, Rodgers was working on an experimental anti-cancer drug that could possibly provide benefits for sickle cell anemia patients.

Patients with prostate cancer have been encouraged by the work of Detroit-based urologist and oncologist Isaac Powell. In 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named his screening program as the outstanding community health project of the year. Powell has been pursuing the idea of advanced diagnostic testing for African American men. Through a partnership with the Karmanos Cancer Institute and area churches, nurses, and hospitals, Powell has been able to educate the public about the importance of undergoing prostate cancer screening. Benefiting from a prostate-specific antigen test, patients have had their cancer caught early enough to undergo successful surgery. In 1996, Powell’s program was being exported to other cities in the United States.

The cancer research of a young African American biologist, Jill Bargonetti, has garnered much attention. She discovered a correlation between a specific gene’s ability to bind with the genetic matter known as DNA and its ability to suppress tumors. In 1996, she received a $300,000, three-year grant from the American Cancer Society and a $200,000, four-year award from the Department of Defense to pursue her study of breast cancer.

Outside of medical research, one-time Olympic athlete and engineering physicist Meredith Gourdine earned a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1960. The Olympic medalist then formed Gourdine Systems, a research and development firm geared towards patenting inventions that use state-of-the-art power sources developed from advanced research in physics. Though blinded by diabetes in 1973, Gourdine went on to launch Energy Innovations the next year. An inventor at heart, he has more than 70 patents in his name and was inducted into the Black Inventors Hall of Fame.

The energy of earthquakes motivates geophysicist Waverly Person. His interest in seismology paid off when he was named director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in 1977. The first African American earthquake scientist, Person is also the first African American in more than 30 years to hold such a prominent position in the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Similarly, meteorologist Warren Washington has been concerned with the earth’s climate. Since 1987, the greenhouse effect expert has been director of the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. After seven years there, he was elected to a one-year term as the first African American president of the American Meteorological Society. Afterwards, Washington co-founded the Black Environmental Science Trust, introducing African American children to science.

In the 1990s and into the new millennium, personal computers and the World Wide Web have been one of the largest areas of scientific and industrial invention. One of the fathers of the Internet, Philip Emeagwali created a formula in 1989 that used 65,000 separate computer processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. This feat allowed computer scientists to comprehend the capabilities of computers to communicate with one another. Another innovator is Omar Wasow, the executive director of Blackplanet.com who created the “community” strategy of running Web domains that almost all Internet sites utilize to maximize efficiency. African Americans have also used the computer to create programs that are aiding in everyday life and government. One such example is Athan Gibbs who introduced in 2002 the Gibbs’ Tru Voter Validation System, a computer touchscreen system that allows voters to touch the picture of the candidate they chose to vote for, eliminating confusion among voters and possible corruption of ballots.

Along with hundreds of other notable African Americans, scientists have been working toward restoring scientific education at all levels. Their presence, whether inside or outside of the public eye, is felt. Younger African Americans who learn of their endeavors are thus encouraged to free their creative science minds.

RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION SEEKS GREATER MINORITY REPRESENTATION IN SILICON VALLEY

Having addressed the lack of employment opportunities for African Americans on Wall Street, the Reverend Jesse Jackson used the same policy during 1999 toward the Silicon Valley—a segment of the economy where whites hold more than 90% of the chief executive officer jobs and board seats at the top 150 public corporations. Seeking greater African American representation in this prominent high-tech region of California, Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition purchased approximately $100,000 worth of stock in 50 of the largest high-tech corporation and announced future plans of opening a staffed office in San Jose, assembling an advisory board of influential Silicon Valley executives to suggest methods ofincreasing African American and Hispanic American participation in the region’s workforce, and hosting a conference that will address methods to effectively educate minorities for high-tech careers.

While acknowledging that nearly 31% of the high-tech industry’s engineers and professionals are Asian American and that Silicon Valley is a major employer of immigrants, Jackson is exerting pressure on corporations to reach beyond their usual networks to work with minority-owned businesses in order to widen their pool of money and talent. With the support of a number of African American chief executive officers—Frank S. Greene of New Vista Capital, Robert E. Knowling of Covad Communications, Roy Clay of Rod-L Electronics; and Kenneth L. Coleman of Silicon Graphics Inc.—Jackson hopes to end the so-called “color-blind” hiring practices that high-tech corporate executives claim to apply, which, in Jackson’s opinion, prevents them from recognizing minority markets. (According to Target Market News, African Americans annually spend $3.8 billion on computer and consumer electronic gear.) Jackson acknowledges that since the beginning of his operation, high-tech companies have begun to embrace diversity in the workplace.

ENGINEERS, MATHEMATICIANS, INVENTORS, PHYSICIANS, AND SCIENTISTS

(To locate biographical profiles more readily, please consult the index at the back of the book.)

GEORGE E. ALCORN (1940– ) Physicist

George Edward Alcorn was born on March 22, 1940. He graduated with a B.A. in physics from Occidental College in 1962, and a M.A. in nuclear physics from Howard University in 1963. In 1967, he earned his Ph.D. from Howard University in atomic and molecular physics. After earning his Ph.D., Alcorn spent 12 years working in industry.

Alcorn left IBM, where he had worked as a second plateau inventor, to join NASA in 1978. While at NASA, Alcorn invented an imaging x-ray spectrometer using thermomigration of aluminum, for which he earned a patent in 1984, and two years later devised an improved method of fabrication using laser drilling. His work on imaging x-ray spectrometers earned him the 1984 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Inventor of the Year Award. During this period, he also served as deputy project manager for advanced development and was responsible for developing new technologies required for the space station Freedom. He also managed the GSFC Evolution Program, concerned with ensuring that over its 30-year mission the space station develops properly while incorporating new capabilities.

From 1992 to 2004, Alcorn served as chief of Goddard’s Office of Commercial Programs, supervising programs for technology transfer, small business innovation research, and the commercial use of space programs. He managed a shuttle flight experiment that involved Robot Operated Material Processing System (ROMPS) in 1994. In 2005, he became Assistant Director for Standards/Excellence in Applied Engineering and Technology at Goddard.

In 1999, Alcorn received the Government Executive Magazine’s Government Technology Leadership Award for developing and commercializing a mapping system called the Airborne Lidar Topographical Mapping System. In 2001, he was awarded special congressional recognition for his efforts in assisting Virgin Islands businesses use NASA technology and programs.

Alcorn holds over 25 patents. He is a recognized pioneer in the fabrication of plasma semiconductor devices, and his patent, Process for Controlling the Slope of a Via Hole, was an important contribution to the process of plasma etching. This procedure is now used by many semiconductor manufacturing companies. Alcorn was one of the first scientists to present a computer-modeling solution of wet etched and plasma etched structure, and has received several cash prizes for his inventions of plasma-processing techniques.

ARCHIE ALEXANDER (1888–1958) Civil Engineer

Born in 1888 in Ottumwa, Iowa, Archie Alphonso Alexander graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.S. in civil engineering in 1912. During his collegiate years, he was a star football player who earned the nickname Alexander the Great on the playing field.

His first job was as a design engineer for the Marsh Engineering Company, a company that specialized in building bridges. Two years later, in 1914, Alexander formed his own company, A.A. Alexander, Inc. Most of the firm’s contracts were for bridges and sewer systems. So successful was he that the NAACP awarded him its Spingarn Medal in 1928. The following year, he formed Alexander and Repass with a former classmate. Alexander’s new company was also responsible for building tunnels, railroad trestles, viaducts, and power plants. Some of Alexander’s biggest accomplishments include the Tidal Basin Bridge and K Street Freeway in Washington, D.C.; a heating plant for his alma mater, the University of Iowa; a civilian airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama; and a sewage disposal plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

A member of Kappa Alpha Psi, Alexander was awarded their “Laurel Wreath” for great accomplishment in 1925. Alexander received honorary civil engineering degrees from the University of Iowa in 1925 and Howard University in 1946. The following year, Alexander was named one of the University of Iowa’s outstanding alumni and “one of the first hundred citizens of merit.” Politically active, Alexander was appointed Governor of the Virgin Islands in 1954 by President Dwight Eisenhower, though he was forced to resign one year later due to health problems. He died at his home in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1958.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER (1731–1806) Mathematician/Statistician, Astronomer, Surveyor/Explorer, Publisher

Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, on a tobacco farm near Baltimore, Maryland. His mother was a free woman, and his father was her slave, whom she purchased and married. At the age of 21, Banneker became interested in watches and later constructed a grandfather clock based upon a pocket watch he had seen, calculating the ratio of the gears and wheels and carving them from wood. The clock operated for more than 40 years.

Banneker’s aptitude for mathematics and knowledge of astronomy enabled him to accurately predict the solar eclipse of 1789. By 1791, he began publishing an almanac, which contained tide tables, weather information, data on future eclipses, and a listing of useful medicinal products and formulas. The almanac, which was the first scientific book published by an African American, appeared annually for more than a decade. Banneker sent a copy to Thomas Jefferson, and the two corresponded, debating the subject of slavery.

Banneker served as a surveyor on the six-person team that helped lay out the base lines and initial boundaries for Washington, D.C. When the chairman of the committee, Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, abruptly resigned and returned to France with his plans, Banneker was able to reproduce the plans from memory in their entirety. He died on October 25, 1806.

ANDREW J. BEARD (1849–1921) Railroad Porter, Inventor

Inventor Andrew Jackson Beard was born a slave in Eastlake, Alabama, in 1849. While working in an Alabama railroad yard, Beard had seen men lose hands, arms, legs, and even their lives in accidents occurring during the manual coupling of railroad cars. The system in use involved the dropping of a metal pin at exactly the right moment when two cars met. Men were often caught between cars and crushed to death during this split-second operation.

Beard’s invention, the “Jenny Coupler,” was an automatic device that secured two cars by merely bumping them together. In 1897, Beard received $50,000 for an invention that has since prevented the death or maiming of countless railroad workers.

DAVID BLACKWELL (1919– ) Mathematician

Considered by some to be the greatest African American mathematician of all time, David Blackwell, the eldest of four children, was born on April 24, 1919, in Centralia, Illinois. As a schoolboy, Blackwell gravitated toward the study of geometry, and after taking a course in introductory analysis, fell in love with mathematics.

Following high school graduation, Blackwell began mathematics study at the University of Illinois in 1935, when he was 16 years old, and graduated with an A.B. in 1938, an A.M. in 1939, and a Ph.D. in 1941, when he was 22. After graduation, he received an appointment to a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship—the Rosenwald Fellowship—at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study. Although his colleagues wished to renew his one-year appointment, the president of the university organized a protest and admonished the Institute for offering the fellowship to an African American. However, during this period—the 1950s and 1960s—Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders brought the issue of racial equality to the forefront of the American consciousness, and Blackwell was able to rise in the ranks of academia at other institutions.

Blackwell obtained instructorships at Southern University and Clark College, and in 1944 was named to the faculty of Howard University. In three years, Blackwell advanced from his instructor position to full professor, then to chairman of the department. He also spent time at RAND Corporation and was a visiting professor of Statistics at Stanford University from 1950 to 1951.

While at Stanford, Blackwell met M. A. Girschick, a faculty member in the agriculture department. The two men began a collaboration that lasted about a decade and resulted in many articles and a book, Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions (1954), which became a classic in the field. Blackwell published over 50 articles and another book during his long career.

Blackwell returned to Howard University, where he remained until 1954. He then was appointed professor of statistics and chairman of the statistics department at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remained until his retirement in 1989. In his career, Blackwell published over 80 papers in topics that included Baysian statistics, probability, game theory, set theory, dynamic programming, and information theory.

Blackwell served as president of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1955; vice president of the American Statistical Association, the International Statistics Institute, and the American Mathematical Society; and was president of the Bernoulli Society. In 1965, he became the first African American to be named to the American Academy of Sciences. In addition, he was named honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Among his numerous honorary degrees and prizes, Blackwell was awarded the Von Neumann Theory Prize by the Operations Research Society of America in 1979. In 2002, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley and Cornell University established the Blackwell-Tapia Award in honor of David Blackwell and Richard A. Tapia, mathematicians who have inspired generations of African American and Hispanic American students and professionals in the mathematical sciences.

GUION S. BLUFORD JR. (1942– ) Space/Atmospheric Scientist, Aerospace Engineer, Air Force Officer, Airplane Pilot

Guion “Guy” Bluford was born November 22, 1942, in Philadelphia. He graduated with a B.S. from Pennsylvania State University in 1964. He then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was assigned to pilot training at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona. Bluford served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam and flew 144 combat missions, 65 of them over North Vietnam. Attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, Bluford received an M.S. from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1974 and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in 1978.

In 1979, Bluford was accepted in NASA’s astronaut program as a mission specialist. On August 30, 1983, with the liftoff of the Challenger shuttle, Bluford became the first African American in space. He flew three other

space shuttle missions aboard Challenger in 1985, and aboard Discovery in 1991 and 1992, for a total of 688 hours in space.

Bluford retired from NASA in 1993 to pursue a career in private industry, where he has served as vice president and general manager of Engineering Services Division of NYMA, Inc. In this position, Bluford directs engineers, scientists, and technicians who provide engineering support to NASA’s Lewis Research Center.

Bluford has won numerous awards including the Distinguished National Science Award given by the National Society of Black Engineers (1979), NASA Group Achievement Award (1980, 1981), NASA Space Flight Medal (1983), and the NAACP Image Award in 1983. Some of his military honors include the National Defense Service Medal (1965), Vietnam Campaign Medal (1967), Air Force Commendation Medal (1972), Air Force Meritorious Service Award (1978), the USAF Command Pilot Astronaut Wings (1983), and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (1994). In 1997, Bluford was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame.

CHARLES F. BOLDEN JR. (1946– ) Airplane Pilot, Space/Atmospheric Scientist, Marine Officer, Operations and Systems Researcher/Analyst

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Southern California, Charles Bolden Jr. has a B.S. in electrical science and a M.S. in systems management. Bolden began his career as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, becoming a naval aviator by 1970. In 1973, he flew more than 100 sorties while assigned in Thailand. Upon his return to the United States, Bolden began a tour as a Marine Corps selection and recruiting officer. In 1979, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and was assigned to the Naval Test Aircraft Directorates.

Bolden was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in May of 1980, and, in July of 1981, completed the training and evaluation program—making him eligible

for assignment as a pilot on space shuttle flight crews. A veteran of four shuttle missions, Bolden has served as pilot for the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission and was commander of the first joint American-Russian space shuttle mission. In 1994, he accepted a position at the Naval Academy.

Bolden has been awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, the Legion of Merit, and the Strike/Flight Medal. In 1998, he was promoted to the rank of major general. He served as Commanding General, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing from 2000 to 2002. He retired in 2004.

In 2002, Bolden was nominated for the position of deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). However, due to a Defense Department order limiting the service of senior military officers in civilian jobs during the U.S. antiterrorism offensive, the highly qualified candidate’s nomination was withdrawn from consideration.

MARJORIE L. BROWNE (1914–1979) Mathematician/Statistician, Educator

Browne was born September 9, 1914, in Memphis, Tennessee. She received a B.S. in mathematics from Howard University in 1935, an M.S. from the University of Michigan in 1939, and a Ph.D. in mathematics, again from the University of Michigan, in 1949. Browne was one of the first two African American women to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics. She taught at the University of Michigan in 1947 and 1948. She accepted the post of professor of mathematics at North Carolina Central University in 1949 and became department chairperson in 1951. In 1960, she received a grant from IBM to establish one of the first computer centers at a minority university.

Browne’s doctoral dissertation dealt with topological and matrix groups, and she was published in the American Mathematical Monthly. She was a fellow of the National Science Foundation in 1958–1959 and again in 1965–1966. Browne was a member of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. She died in 1979.

ALEXA I. CANADY (1950– ) Neurosurgeon

Alexa Irene Canady, the first African American woman to become a neurosurgeon in the United States, was born to Elizabeth Hortense (Golden) Canady and Clinton Canady, Jr., a dentist, on November 7, 1950, in Lansing, Michigan. Canady was recognized as a National Achievement Scholar while in high school, and attended the University of Michigan where she received a B.S. in 1971 and an M.D. in 1975. As a medical student, she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha honorary medical society and received the American Medical Women’s Association citation.

Canady’s internship was spent at the Yale-New Haven Hospital from 1975 to 1976. She gained her landmark residency in neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota from 1976 to 1981. She was the first female and first African American to be granted a residency in neurosurgery at the hospital. Following her residency, Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia awarded Canady a fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery in 1981–1982. In addition to treating patients directly, Canady served as an instructor in neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania College of Medicine.

In 1982, she accepted a position at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The following year, Canady transferred to pediatric neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, where she became the assistant director of neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital three years later, and director in 1987.

She began teaching at Wayne State University School of Medicine as a clinical instructor in 1985, and assumed a clinical associate professorship in 1987. Canady retired in 2001, at which point she was the chief of neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Among her numerous honors and awards, Canady has been inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, and was named Woman of the Year in 1993 by the American Women’s Medical Association. Throughout her career, Canady worked toward changing the perception of African Americans as patients and as physicians.

GEORGE R. CARRUTHERS (1939– ) Astrophysicist

Dr. George Carruthers is one of the two naval research laboratory people responsible for the Apollo 16 lunar surface ultraviolet camera/spectrograph, which was placed on the lunar surface in April 1972. It was Carruthers who designed the instrument while William Conway adapted the camera for the lunar mission. The spectrographs, obtained from 11 targets, include the first photographs of the ultraviolet equatorial bands of atomic oxygen that girdle the earth. The camera was also used on Skylab in 1974.

Carruthers, who was born on October 1, 1939, in Cincinnati, Ohio, grew up on Chicago’s South Side. He built his first telescope at the age of 10. He received his Ph.D. in aeronautical/astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1964.

In 1966, Carruthers became a research assistant at the Navy’s E. O. Hulburt Center for Space Research, where he began work on the lunar surface ultraviolet camera/spectrograph. The images received from the moon gave researchers invaluable information about the Earth’s atmosphere, including possible new ways to control air pollution. The images also aided in the detection of hydrogen in deep space—evidence that plants are not the only source of Earth’s oxygen.

Carruthers has continued his research, and is currently head of the Ultraviolet Measurements Group in the Space Science Division of the Naval Research Laboratory. He is the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal for his work on the ultraviolet camera/spectrograph. Carruthers also won the Arthur S. Fleming Award in 1971, and the 2000 Outstanding Scientist Award presented by the National Institute of Science. In 2003, he was inducted into the National Inventor Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. In 2004, he was chosen as one of 50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science.

BEN CARSON (1951– ) Neurosurgeon

Born Benjamin Solomon Carson on September 18, 1951, in Detroit, Michigan, Dr. Carson has been recognized throughout the international medical community for his prowess in performing complex neurosurgical procedures, particularly on children with pediatric brain tumors, his main focus.

Among his accomplishments are a number of successful hemispherectomies, a process in which a portion of the brain of a critically ill seizure victim or other neurologically diseased patient is removed to radically reduce the incidence of seizures. Carson’s most famous operation took place in 1987, earning him international acclaim. That year he successfully separated a pair of West German Siamese or conjoined twins, who had been attached at the backs of their heads. The landmark operation took 22 hours; Carson led a surgical team of 70 doctors, nurses, and technicians.

Carson was raised in Detroit. His mother, Sonya Carson, who dropped out of school in the third grade, married at 13. She divorced when Carson was eight years old and raised her two sons as a single mother who worked several jobs. Known for his quick temper, Carson was a problem student—he almost killed a peer during a knife fight when he was 14 years old. He was also a failing student, and although she could barely read herself, his mother imposed a reading program on him and limited his television viewing until his grades improved.

In high school, he continued to excel and was accepted at Yale University in 1969 with a scholarship. With a B.A. in psychology from that Ivy League institution, Carson entered the University of Michigan, where his interest shifted to neurosurgery and where he obtained his M.D. in 1977. For one year, he served as a surgical intern at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, later doing his residency there. From 1983 to 1984, Carson practiced at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Australia. In 1984, at 33 years of age, he became the youngest chief of pediatric neurosurgery in the United States. Then, in 1985, Johns Hopkins named him director of the division of pediatric neurosurgery. Carson is a professor of neurosurgery, plastic surgery, oncology, and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. He is also the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Craniofacial Center.

In 2002, Carson, a devout Seventh-day Adventist, was diagnosed with a high-grade prostate cancer that was treated successfully with surgery. He later stated that his experience as a patient made him a more empathetic physician and more devoted to disease prevention.

Carson has authored three best-selling books: Gifted Hands (1990), Think Big (1992), and The Big Picture (1999). He has also established a scholarship fund, called the Carson Scholars Fund, with the aid of his wife, Candy Carson, and co-founded the Benevolent Endowment Fund to assist underinsured and uninsured patients requiring brain surgery. Carson has been awarded over 33 honorary degrees and numerous awards for his work.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER (c. 1864–1943) Educator, Agricultural/Food Scientist, Farmer

George Washington Carver devoted his life to research projects connected primarily with Southern agriculture. The products he derived from the peanut and the soybean revolutionized the economy of the South by liberating it from an excessive dependence on cotton.

Born a slave in Diamond Grove, Missouri, sometime between 1861 and 1865, Carver was only an infant when his mother was abducted from his owner’s plantation by a band of slave raiders. His mother was sold and shipped away, and Carver was raised by his mother’s owners, Moses and Susan Carver. Carver was a frail and sickly child, and he was assigned lighter chores around the house. Later, he was allowed to attend high school in a neighboring town.

Carver worked odd jobs while he pursued his education. He was the first African American student admitted at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa. He then attended Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) where, while working as the school janitor, he received a degree in agricultural science in 1894. Two years later he received a master’s degree from the same school and became the first African American to serve on its faculty. Within a short time, his fame spread, and Booker T. Washington offered him a post at Tuskegee Institute. It was at the Institute’s Agricultural Experimental Station that Carver did most of his work.

Carver revolutionized the Southern agricultural economy by showing that 300 products could be derived from the peanut. By 1938, peanuts had become a $200 million industry and a chief product of Alabama. Carver also demonstrated that 100 different products could be derived from the sweet potato.

Although he did hold three patents, Carver never patented most of the many discoveries he made while at Tuskegee, saying, “God gave them to me, how can I sell them to someone else?” In 1940, he established the George Washington Carver Foundation and willed the rest of his estate to the organization, so his work might be carried on after his death. He died on January 5, 1943.

JEWEL PLUMMER COBB (1924– ) Cell Biologist

Born in Chicago on January 17, 1924, Jewel Cobb grew up exposed to a variety of African American professionals through her parents. Her father, Frank Plummer, was a physician, and her mother, Claribel (Cole) Plummer, was an interpretive dancer. By 1950, she had completed her M.S. and Ph.D. in biology. As a cell biologist, her focus was the action and interaction of living cells. She was particularly interested in tissue culture, in which cells are grown outside of the body and studied under microscopes.

Among her most important work was her study—with Dorothy Walker Jones—of how new cancer-fighting drugs affect human cancer cells. Cobb also conducted research into skin pigment. She was particularly interested in melanoma, a form of skin cancer, and melanin’s ability to protect skin from damage caused by ultraviolet light.

Cobb noted the scarcity of women in scientific fields, and she wrote about the difficulties women face in a 1979 paper “Filters for Women in Science.” In this piece, Cobb argued that various pressures, particularly in the educational system, act as filters that prevent many women from choosing science careers. The socialization of girls has tended to discourage them from pursuing math and the sciences from a very early age, and even those women who got past such obstacles have struggled to get university tenure and the same jobs (at equal pay) as men.

Cobb has been president emeritus of California State University in Fullerton since 1990. She has been active in her community, recruiting women and minorities to the sciences and founding a privately funded gerontology center.

Among Cobb’s numerous honors and awards is the National Science Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to the Advancement of Women and Underrepresented Minorities in 1993.

W. MONTAGUE COBB (1904–1990) Anthropologist, Organization Executive/Founder, Medical Researcher, Educator, Editor

William Montague Cobb was born on October 12, 1904, in Washington, D.C. For more than 40 years, he was a member of the Howard University Medical School faculty; thousands of medical and dental students studied under his direction. At Howard, he built a collection of more than 600 documented skeletons and a comparative anatomy museum in the gross anatomy laboratory. In addition to a B.A. from Amherst College, an M.D. from Howard University, and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve, he received many honorary degrees. Cobb died on November 20, 1990, in Washington, D.C.

As editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association for 28 years, Cobb developed a wide range of scholarly interests manifested by the nearly 700 published works under his name in the fields of medical education, anatomy, physical anthropology, public health and medical history. He was the first African American elected to the presidency of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and served as the chairman of the anthropology section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Among his many scientific awards is the highest award given by the American Association of Anatomists. For 31 years, he was a member of the board of directors of the NAACP and served as the president of the board from 1976 to 1982.

PRICE M. COBBS (1928– ) Psychiatrist, Author, Management Consultant

Cobbs was born Price Mashaw Cobbs in Los Angeles, California, on November 2, 1928, and followed in his father’s path when he enrolled in medical school after earning a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1954. He graduated from Meharry Medical College with an M.D. in psychiatric medicine in 1958 and, within a few years, had established his own San Francisco practice in psychiatry.

With his academic colleague at the University of California, William H. Grier, Cobbs co-authored the groundbreaking 1968 study, Black Rage. In it, the authors argued that a pervasive social and economic racism had resulted in an endemic anger that stretched across all strata of African American society, from rich to poor; this anger was both apparent and magnified by the social unrest of the 1960s. Cobbs and Grier also co-authored a second book, The Jesus Bag (1971), which discussed the role of organized religion in the African American community. In 2003, Cobbs co-authored Cracking the Corporate Code with Judith L. Turnock.

A seminar Cobbs held in 1967 with other mental health care professionals eventually led him to found his own diversity training company, Pacific Management Systems (PMS). Since its inception, the company has been instrumental in providing sensitivity training for Fortune 500 companies, community groups, law enforcement bodies, and social service agencies.

A member of numerous African American professional and community organizations, as well as an assistant clinical professor at the University of California at San Francisco, Cobbs continues to guide PMS well into its third decade. The firm has pioneered the concept of ethnotherapy, which uses the principles of group therapy to help seminar participants rethink their attitudes toward members of other ethnic groups, the disabled, and those of alternative sexual orientations.

PATRICIA S. COWINGS (1948– ) Psychophysiologist

Patricia Suzanne Cowings, the first female scientist trained as an astronaut—although she never was sent into space—was born in New York City on December 15, 1948. She was fascinated by astronomy as a young girl, and this interest continued through high school at New York City’s High School of Music and Arts and college.

Cowings received her B.S. in psychology from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, in 1970, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Davis, in 1973. She received a research scholarship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), then taught for some time but returned to NASA in 1977.

Cowings has spent 23 years at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett’s Field, California, where she is director of the Gravitational Research Branch and the science director of the Psychophysiological Research Laboratory. She worked with Russian cosmonauts for five years. Cowings spent 15 years as the principal investigator for space shuttle experiments on autogenic feedback training, a method she developed for preventing zero-gravity sickness, which is comparable with motion sickness on Earth. Her program, which combines training and biofeedback, offers an effective method for controlling such processes as heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature during space flight. She believes in the ability of the mind to control the body’s responses in adapting to an unfamiliar environment.

Cowings has received numerous honors and awards, including the Research Leadership Award at the 11th Annual National Women of Color Technology Awards Conference in 2006.

ELBERT F. COX (1895–1969) Educator, Mathematician/Statistician

Cox was born in Evansville, Indiana, on December 5, 1895. He received his B.A. from Indiana University in 1917 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1925. His dissertation dealt with polynomial solutions and made Cox the first African American to be awarded a Ph.D. in pure mathematics.

Cox was an instructor at Shaw University (1921– 1923), a professor in physics and mathematics at West Virginia State College (1925–1929), and an associate professor of mathematics at Howard University from 1929 to 1947. In 1947, he was made full professor and retired in 1966.

During his career, Cox specialized in interpolation theory and differential equations. Among his professional accolades were memberships in such educational societies as Beta Kappa Chi, Pi Mu Epsilon, and Sigma Pi Sigma. He was also active in the American Mathematical Society, the American Physical Society, and the American Physics Institute. Cox died on November 28, 1969.

ULYSSES G. DAILEY (1885–1961) Editor, Health Administrator, Surgeon, Diplomat

From 1908 to 1912, Ulysses Grant Dailey served as surgical assistant to Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, founder of Provident Hospital and noted heart surgeon. Born in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, in 1885, Dailey graduated in 1906 from Northwestern University Medical School, where he was appointed a demonstrator in anatomy. He later studied in London, Paris, and Vienna, and in 1926 set up his own hospital and sanitarium in Chicago. Dailey was associated with Provident Hospital after his own hospital closed in 1932, and he retained a position there until his death.

A member of the editorial board of the Journal of the National Medical Association for many years, Dailey traveled around the world in 1933 under the sponsorship of the International College of Surgeons, of which he was a founder fellow. In 1951, and 1953, the U.S. State Department sent him to Pakistan, India, Ceylon, and Africa. One year later, he was named honorary consul to Haiti, moving there in 1956 when he retired.

CHRISTINE M. DARDEN (1942– ) Aerospace Engineer

Christine Darden was born on September 10, 1942, in Monroe, North Carolina. Valedictorian of class at Allen High School in Asheville, North Carolina, she attended the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, and graduated with a B.S. in mathematics in 1962.

Darden joined NASA as a mathematician in 1967, but her interests began to shift to engineering. After teaching high school mathematics for a time, Darden began taking engineering classes at Virginia State College in Petersburg, Virginia. She received her M.S. in applied mathematics from Virginia State College in 1978. In 1983, Darden earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, specializing in fluid mechanics (the flow of gases and liquids) from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Darden returned to NASA and was given her first independent research project, which led to her study of sonic boom—an explosive sound caused by the shock wave that occurs when an airplane flies faster than the speed of sound. She later headed a team in the Supersonic Transport Research Project. Darden attempted to replicate the computer model in a real system to test her theory that the sonic boom of a supersonic flight could be minimized. She succeeded in her attempt when she was serving as a consultant to the joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Darden serves as senior project engineer in the Advanced Vehicles Division at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where she is the head of the Sonic Boom Group. Her team works on aircraft that fly faster than the speed of sound (supersonic aircraft). By using wind tunnels and modifying the design of aircraft, her group’s simulations of supersonic flight have identified aircraft shapes that could reduce the effects of sonic boom. Reducing sonic boom, combined with new technology, will enable significant reductions in air-flight times. As of 2006, Darden directs the Strategic Communications and Education program at NASA.

CHARLES R. DREW (1904–1950) Educator, Medical Researcher, Health Administrator, Surgeon/Physician

Using techniques already developed for separating and preserving blood, Charles Drew pioneered further into the field of blood preservation and organized procedures

from research to a clinical level, leading to the founding of the world’s two largest blood banks just prior to World War II. Born on June 3, 1904 in Washington, D.C., Drew graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he received the Messman Trophy for having brought the most honor to the school during his four years there. He was not only an outstanding scholar, but the captain of the track team and a star halfback on the football team.

After receiving his medical degree from McGill University in 1933, Drew returned to Washington, D.C., to teach pathology at Howard. In 1940, while taking his D.Sc. degree at Columbia University, he wrote a dissertation on “banked blood,” and soon became such an expert in this field that the British government called upon him to set up the first blood bank in England. He also initiated the use of bloodmobiles, trucks equipped with refrigerators to transport blood and plasma to remote locations.

During World War II, Drew was appointed director of the American Red Cross blood donor project. Later, he served as chief surgeon at Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., as well as professor of surgery at Howard University Medical School from 1941 to 1950. A recipient of the 1944 Springarn Medal, Drew was killed in an automobile accident on April 1, 1950.

JOYCELYN ELDERS (1933– ) Physician, Endocrinologist, Former U.S. Surgeon General

Dr. Joycelyn Elders was born Minnie Lee Jones on August 13, 1933, in Schaal, Arkansas. The first of eight children, she grew up working in cotton fields. An avid reader, Jones earned a scholarship to Philander Smith College in Little Rock. Jones studied biology and chemistry in hopes of becoming a lab technician. She was inspired toward greater ambitions after meeting Edith Irby Jones (no relation), the first African American woman to study at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine. In college, Jones changed her name to Minnie Jocelyn Lee, but later dropped the name Minnie.

After obtaining her B.A., Jones served as a physical therapist in the U.S. Army in order to fund her postgraduate education. She was able to enroll in the University of Arkansas School of Medicine in 1956. However, as the only African American woman, and one of only three African American students, she and the other African Americans were forced to use a separate university dining facility—the one provided for the cleaning staff.

After a brief first marriage following college, Jones married Oliver B. Elders in 1960. The newly dubbed Joycelyn Elders fulfilled a pediatric internship at the University of Minnesota, and then returned to Little Rock in 1961 for a residency at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. Her success in the position led her to be appointed chief pediatric resident, in charge of the all-white, all-male battery of residents and interns.

During the next 20 years, Elders forged a successful clinical practice, specializing in pediatric endocrinology (the study of glands). She published more than 100 papers in that period and rose to professor of pediatrics, a position she maintained from 1976 until 1987, when she was named director of the Arkansas Department of Health.

Over the course of her career, Elders’ focus shifted somewhat from diabetes in children to sexual behavior. At the Department of Health, Elders was able to pursue her public advocacy in regards to teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton nominated Elders for the U.S. Surgeon General post, making her the second African American and the fifth woman to hold the cabinet position. Though her confirmation was not unchallenged—many decried her liberal stance—she was formally voted into approval for the position by the Senate on September 7, 1993.

During her tenure, Elders attacked Medicaid for failing to help poverty-stricken women prevent unwanted pregnancies and faulted pharmaceutical companies for overpricing contraceptives. Between 1993 and December of 1994, she spoke out in support of the medicinal use of marijuana, in favor of studying drug legalization, family planning, and against toy guns for children. An uproar was raised when Elders was reported to have recommended that masturbation be discussed in schools as part of human sexuality. She was forced to resign by Clinton in December 1994.

Elders returned to the University of Arkansas Medical School, and resumed teaching, though the state’s General Assembly budget committee tried to block her return. In 1995, she was hosting a daily talk show on AM stations KYSG in Little Rock and WERE in Cleveland. That same year, she joined the board of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1996, her autobiography, entitled Joycelyn Elders MD: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to Surgeon General of America, was published.

Although Elders retired from medicine in 1999, she continues to lecture throughout the United States on health-related and civic issues.

PHILIP EMEAGWALI (1954– ) Mathematician, Engineer, Computer Scientist

Philip Chukwurah Emeagwali, considered a “father” of the Internet, was born on August 23, 1954, in Akure, Nigeria. A young math prodigy, Emeagwali’s high school studies were interrupted when he and his family—members of the Igbo tribe—were forced to flee to eastern Nigeria during the country’s civil war. After living in refugee camps and serving as a cook in the Biafran army, Emeagwali entered Christ the King College in Onitsha, and in 1973, earned a general certificate of education from the University of London.

Emeagwali ventured to the United States the following year to pursue further studies. He earned a B.S. in mathematics from Oregon State University in 1977, an M.S. in civil engineering from George Washington University in 1981, a post master’s degree in ocean, coastal, and marine engineering in 1986, an M.A. in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1986, and a Ph.D. in scientific computing from the University of Michigan in 1993. Emeagwali became a citizen of the United States in 1981 when he married Dale Brown, a renowned scientist and cancer researcher.

In the mid-1970s, Emeagwali began working with computers, eventually becoming a supercomputer programmer. By 1989, he had set the world’s fastest computational record, using 65,000 separate computer processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. The work was important in that it enabled scientists to grasp the capacities of supercomputers, as well as the theoretical uses of linking numerous computers to communicate—an idea that eventually led to the creation of the Internet. For his work, Emeagwali earned the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, a highly coveted award in the computing world. Later, Emeagwali’s background in engineering combined with his knowledge of computers also led to an important breakthrough in the field of petroleum engineering.

Emeagwali, who works as an independent consultant and dubs himself a “public intellectual,” has performed engineering duties for the Maryland State Highway Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. In addition to work as a researcher at the National Weather Service and the University of Michigan during the 1980s, he was a research fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Army High Performance Computing Research Center from 1991 to 1993. He is the recipient of over 100 awards, including Computer Scientist of the Year, National Technical Association, 1993; Eminent Engineer, Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, 1994; International Man of the Year, Minority Technology Council of Michigan, 1994; Best Scientist in Africa Award of the Pan African Broadcasting, Heritage and Achievement Awards (2001), and Gallery of Prominent Refugees of the United Nations (2001).

SOLOMON C. FULLER (1872–1953) Neurologist, Psychiatrist

Born on August 11, 1872, in Monrovia, Liberia, Solomon C. Fuller was the son of Solomon Fuller, a coffee planter and government official whose father had been a slave in Virginia. In 1889, he sailed to the United States and earned his M.D. from Boston University School of Medicine in 1897.

By 1900, he had started his own study of mental patients, and four years later, traveled to Germany to study with Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer, the discoverer of the disease that bears his name. During his stay in Germany, Fuller had an opportunity to spend an afternoon with Paul Ehrlich, who in 1908 would win the Nobel Prize for his research in immunology.

Fuller’s most significant contribution was in the study of Alzheimer’s disease. By the latter part of the twentieth century, scientists still had not reached full agreement as to its cause. At the time of Fuller’s work, the prevailing belief was that arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, caused Alzheimer’s. Fuller disagreed and put forth this opinion in the course of diagnosing the ninth documented case of Alzheimer’s. Proof of his ideas came in 1953, the year he died, when other medical researchers would confirm the lack of any linkage between arteriosclerosis and Alzheimer’s.

HELENE D. GAYLE (1955– ) Epidemiologist, AIDS Researcher

Helene Gayle was born on August 16, 1955, in Buffalo, New York, the third of five children of an entrepreneur father and social worker mother. After graduating from Barnard College in 1976, she then won acceptance to the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school.

Hearing a speech on the cure of smallpox inspired Gayle to pursue public health medicine, and her direction would prove a significant one in the years to come as the plague of AIDS came to decimate communities across the globe. She received her M.D. from University of Pennsylvania as well as a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins, both in 1981. After a residency in pediatrics, she was selected to enter the epidemiology training program in 1984 at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, the nation’s top research center for infectious diseases.

For much of the 1980s, Gayle was intensely involved in the CDC’s research into AIDS and HIV infection through her work first in the center’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, and later as a chief of international AIDS research, a capacity in which she oversaw the scientific investigations of over 300 CDC researchers. Gayle has been instrumental in raising public awareness about the disease, and is especially driven to point out how devastating AIDS has been to the African American community. Sex education, better health care for the poor, and substance abuse prevention are some of the proposals Gayle has championed that she believes will help reduce deaths from AIDS.

In 1992, Gayle was hired as a medical epidemiologist and researcher for the AIDS division of the U.S. Agency for International Development, cementing her reputation as one of the international community’s top AIDS scientists. Gayle has served as director of CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, and was named program director for HIV/AIDS and TB for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2001. She was also named Assistant Surgeon General and Rear Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service. Gayle was named president of CARE USA, a humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting poverty and disease, in 2006.

Gayle has been the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including the Women of Color, Health Science, and Technology Awards, Medical Leadership in Industry Award, in 2002.

EVELYN BOYD GRANVILLE (1924– ) Author, Educator, Lecturer

Born in Washington, D.C., on May 1, 1924, Granville attended Smith College from 1941 to 1946, and earned an A.B. and a M.A. in mathematics. She received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1949, making her one of the first two African American women to be awarded a Ph.D. in pure mathematics.

Granville’s first teaching position was as an instructor at New York University (1949–1950). She then moved to Fisk University where she was an assistant professor

(1950–1952). From 1956 to 1960, Granville worked for IBM on the Project Vanguard and Project Mercury space programs, analyzing orbits and developing computer procedures. Over the next seven years, Granville held positions at the Computation and Data Reduction Center of the U.S. Space Technology Laboratories; the North American Aviation Space and Information Systems Division; and as a senior mathematician for IBM.

Granville returned to teaching in 1967, taking a position at California State University in Los Angeles and teaching there until her retirement in 1984. In addition to her role as a college level instructor, Granville worked to improve mathematics skills at all levels. From 1985 to 1988, Granville emerged from retirement to teach mathematics and computer science at Texas College in Tyler, Texas. In 1990, she accepted an appointment to the Sam A. Lindsey Chair at the University of Texas at Tyler, and in subsequent years, taught there as a visiting professor. Granville is the co-author of Theory of Applications of Math for Teachers (1975). She received an honorary doctorate from Smith College in 1989.

FREDERICK D. GREGORY (1941– ) Airplane Pilot, Astronaut

Gregory was born January 7, 1941, in Washington, D.C. He is the nephew of the late Dr. Charles Drew, noted blood plasma specialist. Under the sponsorship of United States Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Gregory attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and graduated with a B.S. in 1964. In 1977, he received an M.S.A. from George Washington University.

Gregory was a helicopter and fighter pilot for the USAF from 1965 to 1970, and a research and test pilot for the USAF and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1971. In 1978, he was accepted into NASA’s astronaut program, making him the second African American astronaut in NASA’s history. In 1985, he went into space aboard the Challenger Space Shuttle as a pilot, a first for an African American. Gregory served with NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance until 2001, when he was named acting associate administrator for the Office of Space Flight and remained in that position until 2002, when he was appointed deputy administrator. In 2005, Gregory assumed the position of acting administrator of NASA, nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Gregory, who retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel, belongs to the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen, the American Helicopter Society, and the National Technical Association. He has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates as well as civic and community honors. He has also won numerous medals and awards including the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, and two NASA Space Flight Medals. He has twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross. He is also the recipient of George Washington University’s Distinguished Alumni Award, NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Award, and the National Society of Black Engineers’ Distinguished National Scientist Award. In 2003, he received the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Executives, and in 2004 and 2005, he was designated one of the 50 Most Important Blacks in Technology.

LLOYD A. HALL (1894–1971) Research Director, Chemist

Grandson of the first pastor of Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church, the first African American church in Chicago, Lloyd Augustus Hall was born in Elgin, Illinois, on June 20, 1894. A top student and athlete at East High School in Aurora, Illinois, he graduated in the top 10 of his class and was offered scholarships to four different colleges in Illinois. In 1916, Hall graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in chemistry. He continued his studies at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois.

During World War I, Hall served as a lieutenant, inspecting explosives at a Wisconsin plant. After the war, Hall joined the Chicago Department of Health Laboratories, where he quickly rose to senior chemist. In 1921, he took employment at Boyer Chemical Laboratory. He became president and chemical director of the Chemical Products Corporation the following year. In 1924, he was offered a position with Griffith Laboratories. Within one year, he was chief chemist and director of research.

While there, Hall discovered curing salts for the preserving and processing of meats, thus revolutionizing the meat-packing industry. He also discovered how to sterilize spices and researched the effects of antioxidants on fats. Along the way, he registered more than 100 patents for processes used in the manufacturing and packing of food, especially meat and bakery products.

In 1954, Hall became chairman of the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Chemists. The following year, he was elected a member of the national board of directors, becoming the first African American man to hold that position in the institute’s 32-year history. Upon his retirement from Griffith in 1959, Hall continued to serve as a consultant to various state and federal organizations. In 1961, he spent six months in Indonesia, advising the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. From 1962 to 1964, he was a member of the American Food for Peace Council, an appointment made by President John F. Kennedy.

MARC R. HANNAH (1956– ) Computer Scientist

Marc Regis Hannah, a native Chicagoan, was born on October 13, 1956. In high school, he took a computer science course that kindled his interest in this relatively new field. Also inspired by the example of an older brother, he earned high grades that would qualify him for a Bell Laboratories-sponsored scholarship to engineering school. He would eventually earn a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1985.

While at Stanford, he met James Clark, an engineering professor who was a pioneer in computer graphics, having invented a special computer chip that was the heart of an imaging process. Hannah redesigned the chip to operate five times faster, an advance that impressed Clark enough to invite Hannah to join him in founding a computer graphics company—in 1981, Silicon Graphics, an international market leader in 3-D computer graphics, was born. Silicon Graphics’ technology has been used to enhance many devices, such as military flight simulators and medical computed axial tomography (CAT) scans. Among the most lucrative areas for this technology, and certainly the best known, is that of video and film animation. The special effects made possible by three-dimensional imaging in films such as Star Wars, Terminator II, and Jurassic Park. Hannah is vice president, chief scientist, and chief architect of the Personal IRIS, Indigo, Indigo2, and Indy graphics subsystems at the company.

MATTHEW A. HENSON (1866–1955) Seaman, Explorer/Surveyor, Author

Matthew Henson was born August 6, 1866, in Charles County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. He attended school in Washington, D.C., for six years, but at the age of 13, signed on as a cabin boy on a ship headed for China. Henson worked his way up to seaman while he sailed over many of the world’s oceans. After several odd jobs in different cities, Henson met U.S. Navy surveyor Robert Edward Peary in Washington, D.C. Peary, who was planning a trip to Nicaragua, hired Henson on the spot as his valet. Henson was not pleased at being a personal servant, but nonetheless felt his new position held future opportunities.

Peary eventually made seven trips to the Arctic starting in 1893. He became convinced that he could become the first man to stand at the North Pole. Henson accompanied Peary on these trips to Greenland and became an integral part of Peary’s plans. The pair made four trips looking for a passageway to the North Pole. In 1909, Peary and Henson made their final attempt at reaching the Pole. Although Peary was undoubtedly the driving force of these expeditions, he was increasingly reliant on Henson. Henson’s greatest assets were his knowledge of the Inuit language and his ability to readily adapt to their culture. He was also an excellent dog driver, and possessed a physical stamina that Peary lacked due to leukemia. Henson felt that he was serving the African American race by his example of loyalty, fortitude, and trustworthiness.

By the end of March 1909, they were within 150 miles of their goal. Henson, because of his strength, would break trail and set up camp for the night, while Peary followed. On April 6, Henson thought he had reached the Pole; Peary arrived later to affirm the belief. Henson then had the honor of planting the U.S. flag.

In 1912, Henson wrote A Negro at the North Pole, but the book aroused little interest. By the 1930s, however, Henson began receiving recognition for his contributions to arctic exploration. In 1937, he was the first African American elected to the Explorers Club in New York. In 1944, he and other surviving members of the expedition received Congressional medals. In 1954, Henson received public recognition for his deeds from President Eisenhower. Henson died in 1955 and was buried in New York. In 1988, his remains were exhumed and buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, next to the grave of Robert Peary.

WILLIAM A. HINTON (1883–1959) Lecturer, Medical Researcher, Educator

Long one of the world’s authorities on venereal disease, Dr. William A. Hinton is responsible for the development of the Hinton test, a reliable method for detecting syphilis. He also collaborated with Dr. J. A. V. Davies on what is now called the Davies-Hinton test for the detection of this same disease.

Born in Chicago on December 15, 1883, Hinton graduated from Harvard in 1905. In 1912, he finished his medical studies in three years at Harvard Medical School. After graduation, he was a voluntary assistant in the pathological laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. This was followed by eight years of laboratory practice at the Boston Dispensary and at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In 1923, Hinton was appointed lecturer in preventive medicine and hygiene at Harvard Medical School, where he served for 27 years. In 1949, he was the first person of color to be granted a professorship there.

In 1931, at the Boston Dispensary, Hinton started a training school for poor girls so that they could become medical technicians. From these classes of volunteers grew one of the country’s leading institutions for the training of technicians. Though he lost a leg in an automobile

accident, Hinton remained active in teaching and at the Boston Dispensary Laboratory, which he directed from 1916 to 1952. He died in Canton, Massachusetts, on August 8, 1959.

SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON (1946– ) Lecturer, Physicist

Born in Washington, D.C., on August 5, 1946, Shirley Ann Jackson graduated as valedictorian of her class from Roosevelt High School in 1964. In 1968, she received a B.S. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was one of only two African American women in her undergraduate class. In 1973, she became the first African American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in physics, which she also earned from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was later named a life member of the MIT Corporation, the institute’s board of trustees.

Jackson’s first position—as a research associate at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois—reflected her interest in the study of subatomic particles. Jackson has worked as a member of the technical staff on theoretical physics at AT&T Bell Laboratories, as a visiting scientist at the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva, and as a visiting lecturer at the NATO International Advanced Study Institute in Belgium.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton named Jackson as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Under Jackson’s direction, the NRC became more aggressive about inspections and forced some top officials out of office because of their lax enforcement of safety regulations. Jackson has held the post of professor at Rutgers University and is active in many organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Science Foundation. In 2001, she was elected to the board of the Public Service Enterprise Group, just one day after being appointed a director of the AT&T Corporation. Jackson has also been named to seven boards of publicly traded companies since July 1999, when she became the eighteenth president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jackson has been awarded 40 honorary doctoral degrees and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998 for her work as a scientist and an advocate for education, science, and public policy. In 2004, Jackson was named one of seven 2004 fellows of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), an organization dedicated to achieving equity and full participation of women in all areas of science and technology.

MAE C. JEMISON (1956– ) Physician/Surgeon

Mae Jemison was born October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama, but her family moved to Chicago when she was three years old. She attended Stanford University on a National Achievement Scholarship and received a B.S. in chemical engineering and a B.A. in Afro-American studies in 1977. She then enrolled in Cornell University’s medical school and graduated in 1981. Her medical internship was at the Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center in 1982. She was a general practitioner with the INA/Ross Loos Medical Group in Los Angeles until 1983, followed by two years as a Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Returning to the United States in 1985, she began working for CIGNA Health Plans, a health maintenance organization in Los Angeles, and applied for admission into NASA’s astronaut program.

In 1987, Jemison was accepted in NASA’s astronaut program. Her first assignment was representing the astronaut office at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape

Canaveral, Florida. On September 12, 1992, Jemison became the first African American woman in space on the shuttle Endeavour. She served aboard the Endeavour as a science specialist. As a physician, she studied the effect of weightlessness on herself and other crew members. Jemison resigned from NASA in 1993 to pursue personal goals related to science education and health care in West Africa. In 1993, she was appointed to a Montgomery Fellowship at Dartmouth College, where she established the Jemison Institute for Advanced Technology in Developing Countries. That same year, she founded the Jemison Group, an advanced technologies research and consulting firm. In 1994, Jemison founded the International Science Camp in Chicago to help young people become enthusiastic about science.

In 1988, Jemison won the Science and Technology Award given by Essence magazine and in 1990 she was Gamma Sigma Gamma’s Woman of the Year. In 1991, she earned a Ph.D. from Lincoln University. She also served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. In 2001, she published a memoir for children called Find Where the Wind Goes.

FREDERICK M. JONES (1893–1961) Mechanic, Inventor

In 1935, Frederick McKinley Jones built the first automatic refrigeration system for long haul trucks. Later, the system was adapted to various other carriers including railway cars, ships, and trucks. Previously, foods were packed in ice so slight delays led to spoilage. Jones’ new method instigated a change in eating habits of the entire nation and allowed for the development of food production facilities in almost any geographic location. Refrigerated trucks were also used to preserve and ship blood products during World War II.

Jones was born in Kentucky in 1893. His mother left the family when he was a baby, and his father left him at age five to be raised by a priest until he was 16 years of age. There, Jones received a sixth grade education. When he left the rectory, he worked as a pin boy, mechanic’s assistant, and finally, as chief mechanic on a Minnesota farm. He served in World War I and, in the late 1920s, his mechanical fame spread when he developed a series of devices to adapt silent movie projectors into sound projectors.

Jones also developed an air conditioning unit for military field hospitals, a portable x-ray machine, and a refrigerator for military field kitchens. During his life, a total of 61 patents were issued in Jones’s name. He died in 1961.

PERCY L. JULIAN (1899–1975) Educator, Medical Researcher, Research Director

Born on April 11, 1899, in Montgomery, Alabama, Julian attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa at DePauw University and was valedictorian of his class after having lived during his college days in the attic of a fraternity house where he worked as a waiter. For several years, Julian taught at Fisk, West Virginia State College, and Howard University where he was associate professor and head of the chemistry department. He left to attend Harvard and the University of Vienna, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1931. Julian then continued his research and teaching duties at Howard.

In 1935, Julian synthesized the drug physostigmine, which is used today in the treatment of glaucoma. He later became director of research, chief chemist and did soybean research at the Glidden Company, where he specialized in the production of sterols, which he extracted from the oil of the soybean. The method perfected by Julian in 1950 eventually lowered the cost of sterols to less than 20 cents a gram and, ultimately, enabled millions of people suffering from arthritis to obtain relief through the use of cortisone, a sterol derivative. Later, Julian developed methods for manufacturing sex hormones from soya bean sterols: progesterone was used to prevent miscarriages, while testosterone was used to treat older men for diminishing sex drive. Both hormones were important in the treatment of cancer.

In 1954, after serving as director of research for the Glidden Company, he founded his own company, the Julian Laboratories, in Chicago and Mexico. Years later, the company was sold to Smith, Kline, and French. In 1947, Julian was awarded the Spingarn Medal and, in 1964, he founded Julian Institute and Julian Associates Incorporated in Franklin Park, Illinois. He was awarded the Chemical Pioneer Award by the American Institute of Chemists in 1968. Julian died on April 19, 1975.

ERNEST E. JUST (1883–1941) Editor, Zoologist, Marine Biologist

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, on August 14, 1883, Ernest Just received his B.A. in 1907 with high honors from Dartmouth and his Ph.D. in 1916 from the University of Chicago. His groundbreaking work on the embryology of marine invertebrates included research on fertilization—a process known as parthenogenesis—but his most important achievement was his discovery of the role protoplasm plays in the development of a cell.

Just began teaching at Howard University in 1907 and started graduate training at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1909. He performed most of his research at this site over the next 20 summers. Between 1912 and 1937, he published more than 50 papers on fertilization, parthenogenesis, cell division, and mutation. He also published a textbook in 1939 that was the result of his research in cell functioning and the structure and role of protoplasm within a cell.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Just received the Spingarn Medal in 1914 and served as associate editor of Physiological Zoology, The Biological Bulletin, and The Journal of Morphology. In 1930, Just was one of 12 zoologists to address the International Congress of Zoologists and he was elected vice president of the American Society of Zoologists. Ernest Just left the United States in 1929 because of racist attitudes that prevented his career from advancing. He died on October 27, 1941.

SAMUEL L. KOUNTZ (1930–1981) Physician/Surgeon, Medical Researcher

Born in 1930 in Lexa, Arkansas, Samuel Kountz graduated third in his class at the Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College of Arkansas in 1952, having initially failed his entrance exams. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Arkansas, earning a degree in chemistry. Senator J. W. Fulbright, who Kountz met when he was a graduate student, advised Kountz to apply for a scholarship to medical school. Kountz won the scholarship on a competitive basis and was the first African American to enroll at the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock, graduating with his M.D. in 1958. Kountz was responsible for finding out that large doses of the drug methylprednisolone could help reverse the acute rejection of a transplanted kidney. The drug was used for a number of years in the standard management of kidney transplant patients.

While he was still an intern, Kountz assisted in the first West Coast kidney transplant. In 1964, working with Dr. Roy Cohn, one of the pioneers in the field of transplantation, Kountz again made medical history by transplanting a kidney from a mother to a daughter—the first transplant between humans who were not identical twins. At the University of California in 1967, Dr. Kountz worked with other researchers to develop the prototype of a machine that is now able to preserve kidneys up to 50 hours from the time they are taken from the body of a donor. The machine, called the Belzer Kidney Perfusion Machine, was named for Dr. Folker O. Belzer, who was Kountz’s partner. Kountz went on to build one of the largest kidney transplant training and research centers in the nation. He died in 1981 after a long illness contracted on a trip to South Africa in 1977.

LEWIS H. LATIMER (1848–1928) Draftsperson, Electrical Engineer

Lewis Howard Latimer, a pioneer in the development of the electric light bulb, was employed by Alexander Graham Bell to make the patent drawings for the first telephone, and later he went on to become chief draftsman for both the General Electric and Westinghouse companies.

Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, and raised in Boston, Latimer enlisted in the Union Navy at the age of 15 and began studying drafting upon completion of his military service. In 1881, he invented a method of making carbon filaments for the Maxim electric incandescent lamp and later patented this method. He also supervised the installation of electric light in New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London for the Maxim-Weston Electric Company. In 1884, he joined the Edison Company.

Latimer died on December 11, 1928, in New York City.

THEODORE K. LAWLESS (1892–1971) Physician, Philanthropist

Theodore Kenneth Lawless was born on December 6, 1892, in Thibodeaux, Louisiana. He received his B.S. from Talladega College in 1914 and continued to further his education at the University of Kansas and Northwestern University, where he received his M.D. in 1919. He then pursued a master’s in dermatology, which he finished at Columbia University. From there he furthered his studies at Harvard University, the University of Paris, the University of Freiburg, and the University of Vienna.

Lawless started his own practice in the Chicago’s predominantly African American South Side upon his return in 1924, which he continued until his death in 1971. He soon became one of the premiere dermatologists in the country and earned great praise for researching treatments and cures for a variety of skin diseases including syphilis and leprosy. During the early years of his career, he taught dermatology at Northwestern University Medical School, where his research was instrumental in devising electropyrexia, a treatment for those suffering cases of syphilis in its early stages. Before he left his role at Northwestern in 1941, he aided in building the university’s first medical laboratories.

After leaving Northwestern, Lawless entered the business world beginning as president of 4213 South Michigan Corporation, which sold low-cost real estate, and later as president of the Service Federal Savings and Loan Association. By the 1960s, he was well-known as one of the 35 richest African American men in the United States.

During his lifetime, Lawless served on dozens of boards of directors and belonged to countless organizations. He served on the Chicago Board of Health, as senior attending physician at Provident hospital, as associate examiner in dermatology for the National Board of Medical Examiners, as chairman of the Division of Higher Education, and as consultant to the Geneva Community Hospital in Switzerland. He was also recognized with many awards for his exemplary breakthroughs in medicine, public service, and philanthropy including the Harmon Award in Medicine in 1929, the Churchman of the Year in 1952, the Springarn Medal from the NAACP in 1954, and the Daniel H. Burnham Award from Roosevelt University in 1963. He died in 1971.

ROBERT H. LAWRENCE JR. (1935–1967) Astronaut, Airplane Pilot

Air Force Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr. was the first African American astronaut to be appointed to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Lawrence was a native of Chicago, and while still in elementary school, he became a model airplane hobbyist and a chess enthusiast. Lawrence became interested in biology during his time at Englewood High School in Chicago. As a student at Englewood, Lawrence excelled in chemistry and track. When he graduated, he placed in the top 10% of the class.

Lawrence entered Bradley University, joining the Air Force Reserve Officer’s Training Corps and attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, making him the second highest ranking cadet at Bradley. Lawrence was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force in 1956 and soon after received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry. Following a stint at an air base in Germany, Lawrence entered Ohio State University through the Air Force Institute of Technology as a doctoral candidate, earning his Ph.D. in 1965. Lawrence’s career came to an end in 1967 when his F-104D Starfighter jet crashed on a runway in a California desert.

ELIJAH MCCOY (1843–1929) Inventor, Machinist

Born in 1843 in Canada, McCoy traveled to Scotland at age 16. There he was apprenticed to a master mechanic and engineer. After the Civil War, he moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he sought work as an engineer. However, he was only able to obtain employment as a fireman and oiler for Michigan Central Railroad.

McCoy’s first invention was a lubricating cup that used steam pressure to drive oil into channels that brought it to a steam engine’s moving parts. It was patented in

1872. Before this invention, these parts had to be oiled at the car’s intermittent stops, slowing the pace of rail travel considerably. In addition, the automatic device kept the engine better lubricated than was possible with the old method. Variations of this cup came to be used on many types of heavy machinery. Although McCoy received at least 72 patents in his lifetime, little money would reach his pockets as a result of his ideas. Because he lacked the capital to invest in manufacturing, he sold most of his patents for modest sums of money while the manufacturers made millions. Later in his life, he helped found the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company, but he died just a few years later.

RONALD E. MCNAIR (1950–1986) Astronaut

Ronald McNair was born on October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. He was a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University with a B.S. degree in physics. He also received a Ph.D. in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was presented an honorary Doctorate of Laws from North Carolina A&T in 1978.

McNair was working on the use of lasers in satellite communications when he was selected by NASA in 1978 to train as an astronaut. In August 1979, he completed a one-year training and evaluation period that made him eligible for assignment as mission specialist on Space Shuttle flight crews. He presented papers in the areas of lasers and molecular spectroscopy and gave many presentations in the United States and Europe. He was the second African American to orbit the earth on a NASA mission.

Despite the rigorous training in the NASA program, he taught karate at a church, played the saxophone, and found time to interact with young people. McNair was aboard the shuttle Challenger that exploded shortly after liftoff from Cape Kennedy and plunged into the waters off the Florida coast on January 28, 1986. The shuttle had a crew of seven persons including two women, a mission specialist, and a teacher-in-space participant.

WALTER E. MASSEY (1938– ) Physicist

Walter Eugene Massey was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on April 5, 1938. At the end of the tenth grade, he accepted a scholarship to Morehouse College. He almost quit after a few weeks, but graduated four years later with a B.S. in physics. He completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1966.

Massey’s research interests have included solid state theory (study of properties of solid material) and theories of quantum liquids and solids. While still a graduate student, he studied the behavior of both solid and liquid helium-3 and helium-4, publishing a series of papers on this work in the early 1970s. He became a full professor at Brown University in 1975 and was named dean of the college in the same year. Massey’s best-known accomplishment at Brown was his development of the Inner City Teachers of Science (ICTOS) program, a program for the improvement of science instruction in inner city schools. He was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Distinguished Service Citation for his development of ICTOS.

In 1979, the University of Chicago invited Massey to become professor of physics and director of the Argonne National Laboratory, which the university operates for the U.S. Department of Energy. The facility was beset by financial troubles at the time, and Massey has been credited with its successful recovery. In the fall of 1990, Massey was chosen by Pres. George H. W. Bush to head the National Science Foundation (NSF), a position he held until 1993. He was only the second African American to hold that post. Massey was president of Morehouse College from 1995 to 2007. He has also served on the board of several major corporations.

JAN MATZELIGER (1852–1889) Inventor, Shoemaker/Leather Worker

Born in 1852 in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, Matzeliger found employment in the government machine works at the age of 10. Nine years later, he left home and eventually immigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where he worked in a shoe factory. He later moved to New England, settling permanently in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1877. The Industrial Revolution had by this time resulted in the invention of machines to cut, sew, and tack shoes, but none had been perfected to last a shoe, which involved stretching the leather over a model foot. Observing this, Matzeliger designed and patented a device, one which he refined over the years to a point where it could last the leather, arrange the leather over the sole, drive in the nails, and deliver the finished product—all within one minute.

Matzeliger’s patent was subsequently bought by Sydney W. Winslow, who established the United Shoe Machine Company. The continued success of this business brought about a 50% reduction in the price of shoes across the nation, doubled wages for unskilled workers, and improved working conditions for millions of people dependent on the shoe industry for their livelihood. Between 1883 and 1891, Matzeliger received five patents on his inventions, all which contributed to the shoemaking revolution. His last patent was issued in September 1891, two years after his death.

Matzeliger died of tuberculosis in 1889 at the age of 37, long before he had the chance to realize a share of the enormous profit derived from his invention. He never received any money. Instead, he was issued stock in the company that did not become valuable until after his demise.

GARRETT A. MORGAN (1877–1963) Inventor

Born in Paris, Kentucky, in 1877, Morgan moved to Cleveland at an early age. Although he was most famous for his invention of the gas inhalator, an early gas mask, he also invented an improvement on the sewing machine that he sold for $150, as well as a hair-refining cream that straightened human hair. The cream remained in use for over 40 years. In 1923, having established his reputation with the gas inhalator, he was able to command a price of $40,000 from the General Electric Company for his automatic traffic signal.

In 1912, Morgan developed his safety hood, a gas inhalator that was a precursor to the gas mask. The value of his invention was first acknowledged during a successful rescue operation of several men trapped by a tunnel explosion in the Cleveland Waterworks, some 200 feet below the surface of Lake Erie. During the emergency, Morgan, his brother, and two other volunteers were the only men able to descend into the smoky, gas-filled tunnel and save several workers from asphyxiation.

Orders for the Morgan inhalator soon began to pour into Cleveland from fire companies all over the nation, but as soon as Morgan’s racial identity became known, many of them were canceled. In the South, it was necessary for Morgan to utilize the services of a white man to demonstrate his invention. During World War I, the Morgan inhalator was transformed into a gas mask used by combat troops. Morgan died in 1963 in Cleveland—the city that had awarded him a gold medal for his devotion to public safety.

WAVERLY J. PERSON (1927– ) Geophysicist, Seismologist

Waverly J. Person, born in Blackenridge, Virginia, on May 1, 1927, is the first African American to hold the prominent position of director of the United States Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center. A respected geophysicist and seismologist, he was also one of the first African Americans in his field. He also currently encourages minority students to consider the earth sciences as a career.

While a technician at the National Information Earthquake Center, he took up graduate studies. From 1962 to 1973, he held that position and simultaneously completed graduate work at American University and George Washington University. His supervisors increasingly assigned him more challenging tasks that he performed well, gaining notice among his peers. Soon, he was qualified as a geophysicist and transferred to the United States Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado. In 1977, Person was named director of the Colorado National Earthquake Information Center, and in 1994, was named director of the National Earthquake Information Center.

Person has been honored with many distinguished awards throughout his professional life. These include an Honorary Doctorate in Science from St. Paul’s College in 1988; Outstanding Government Communicator in 1988; Meritorious Service Award-United States Department Interior in 1989; and in 1990, the Annual Minority Award from the Community Services Department in Boulder, Colorado. His work at the National Earthquake Information Center has been praised by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Person is often called on as an earthquake spokesperson by national and international media.

NORBERT RILLIEUX (1806–1894) Inventor, Mechanical Engineer

Norbert Rillieux’s inventions were of great value to the sugar refining industry. The method formerly used called

for gangs of slaves to ladle boiling sugarcane juice from one kettle to another—a primitive process known as the “Jamaica Train.” In 1845, Rillieux invented a vacuum evaporating pan (a series of condensing coils in vacuum chambers) that reduced the industry’s dependence on gang labor, and helped manufacture a superior product at a greatly reduced cost. The first Rillieux evaporator was installed at Myrtle Grove Plantation, Louisiana, in 1845. In the following years, factories in Louisiana, Cuba, and Mexico converted to the Rillieux system.

A native of New Orleans, Rillieux was the son of Vincent Rillieux, a wealthy engineer, and Constance Vivant, a slave on his plantation. Young Rillieux’s higher education was obtained in Paris, where his extraordinary aptitude for engineering led to his appointment at the age of 24 as an instructor of applied mechanics at L’Ecole Centrale. Rillieux returned to Paris permanently in 1854, securing a scholarship and working on the deciphering of hieroglyphics.

When his evaporator process was finally adopted in Europe, he returned to inventing with renewed interest—applying his process to the sugar beet. In so doing, he cut production and refining costs in half.

Rillieux died in Paris on October 8, 1894, leaving behind a system that is in universal use throughout the sugar industry, as well as in the manufacture of soap, gelatin, glue, and many other products.

MABEL K. STAUPERS (1890–1988) Former National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses President, Nurse, Civil Rights Advocate

As president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, Mabel Keaton Staupers led a successful drive to integrate the mainstream nursing profession and to end segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces Nurse Corps in World War II.

Staupers was born in Barbados, West Indies, on February 27, 1890, and migrated to the United States in 1903, settling in Harlem. She began her nursing education in 1914 at Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing (now known as Howard University College of Nursing) in Washington, D.C., and in 1917 graduated with class honors. After graduation, she began private-duty nursing until, with the assistance of physicians Louis T. Wright and James Wilson, she helped to found the Booker T. Washington Sanitarium in Harlem in 1922. This served as Harlem’s first inpatient center for African American patients with tuberculosis.

With a working fellowship, Staupers spent time at Jefferson Hospital Medical College in Philadelphia, then conducted a survey of health needs in Harlem for the New York Tuberculosis Association. She identified the health care problems of minorities, leading to the establishment of the Harlem Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association. Ultimately, she served 12 years as executive secretary.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Staupers worked closely with association president Estelle Massey Riddle in a fight to integrate African American nurses into the mainstream of nursing. On January 20, 1945, the surgeon general of the U.S. Army announced that race would no longer be a factor in accepting nurses into the Army Nurse Corps. The U.S. Navy followed five days later by integrating the Navy Nurse Corps.

Later, Staupers fought to end the racial barriers of the American Nurses’ Association (ANA); in 1948, its House of Delegates opened the organization to African American members. By 1949, however, Staupers persuaded the NACGN’s members that the organization had realized its goals and was now obsolete. The organization’s convention in that year voted to dissolve the organization, and Staupers presided over the formal dissolution.

In recognition of her leadership and efforts to remove racial barriers for African American women in the military and the ANA, Staupers was widely honored. Among her honors was the Spingarn Medal, which she received from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1951. She recorded the plight of African American nurses in her book, No Time for Prejudice: A Story of the Integration of Negroes in the United States. Staupers died on November 29, 1989.

LEWIS TEMPLE (1800–1854) Inventor

The toggle iron harpoon—the standard harpoon used in American whaling from the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries—was invented by Lewis Temple. This harpoon, which had a moveable head that prevented a whale from slipping loose, was an improvement over the barbed head harpoon, led to a doubling of the annual catch.

Little is known of Temple’s early background, except that he was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia, in 1800 and had no formal education. He obtained his freedom and as a young man moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, then a major New England whaling port. Finding work as a metal smith, Temple modified the design of the whaler’s harpoon and, in 1848, manufactured a new version of the harpoon with a barbed and pivoting head, making it much harder for a harpooned whale to escape. Using the toggle harpoon, the whaling industry soon entered a period of unprecedented prosperity. Temple, who never patented his harpoon, accidentally fell and never completely recovered from his injuries. He died in May 1854, destitute.

VIVIEN THOMAS (1910–1985) Surgical Research Technician

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1910, Vivien Thomas had dreamed of a career as a physician since childhood. As a teenager, he worked as a carpenter and as an orderly to earn money for college, and enrolled in Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College in 1929. The stock market crash later that year eradicated Thomas’ savings, and he was forced to quit school.

The following year, he was hired for a research assistant post at Vanderbilt University Medical School; he would become trauma researcher and surgeon Alfred Blalock’s assistant. For the next decade, Thomas worked long hours in the lab, conducting medical experiments for Blalock that eventually led to lifesaving advances in medicine during World War II, especially in the use of blood transfusions.

When Blalock was hired by the prestigious medical school at Johns Hopkins University in 1940, he would accept the post only if they hired Thomas as well. One of their most significant achievements together was a surgical procedure that restructured the blood vessels around an infant’s heart if the child was in danger of death due to poor circulation of blood into the lungs.

Thomas became a well-known and well-regarded figure on the campus of Johns Hopkins. He remained at the institution even after his mentor passed away in 1964, and in 1971, was honored by graduates of its medical school for his achievements. He became a medical school faculty member in 1977, and received an honorary degree in 1976. He retired in 1979. Thomas passed away in 1985, the same year a recounting of his life was published titled Pioneering Research in Surgical Shock and Cardiovascular Surgery: Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock.

MARGARET E. M. TOLBERT (1943– ) Analytical Chemist

Margaret Ellen Mayo Tolbert was born on November 24, 1943, to J. Clifton Mayo and Martha Artis Mayo in Suffolk, Virginia. The third of six children, Tolbert was still young when her parents separated and, shortly thereafter, her mother died. The six children were cared for by various neighbors and friends until they moved in with their paternal grandmother, Fannie Mae Johnson Mayo. Margaret Tolbert earned her undergraduate degree from Tuskegee University, and then obtained an M.S. in analytical chemistry in one year of study at Wayne State University. In 1970, she was recruited to join the doctoral program in chemistry at Brown University. Her research on biochemical reactions in liver cells was partially funded by a scholarship from the Southern Fellowship Fund.

In 1979, Tolbert spent five months in Brussels, Belgium, studying how different drugs are metabolized in rat liver cells at the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology. After her return to the United States, she was appointed director of the Carver Research Foundation. During her tenure, Tolbert was able to bring several large scientific research contracts to the university from the federal government—contracts that expanded the research capabilities of the entire school. From 1990 to 1993, Tolbert directed the Research Improvement in Minority Institutions Program for the National Science Foundation, which works to strengthen the infrastructure of research programs at minority colleges and universities.

In 1996, Tolbert was appointed director of the New Brunswick Laboratory at Argonne National Laboratories. She served in that position until 2002. As only the third director in the laboratory’s almost 50-year history, Tolbert’s position allowed her to help the entire country by enhancing nuclear security nationally as well as support international nonproliferation efforts. In addition, Tolbert was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1998. She is a member of Sigma Xi, the American Chemical Society, the Organization of Black Scientists, and the American Association of University Women. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Women of Color in Government and Defense Technology Award in Managerial Leadership (2001).

Tolbert organized the U.S. Department of Energy’s Science Education Directors Council in 1994, and served as the council’s chair in 1995–1996. Involved in educational outreach throughout her career, in 2002, Tolbert accepted a position as senior-level spokesperson at the National Science Foundation. In this position, her function is to promote the foundation’s efforts to increase the participation of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities in science.

OMAR WASOW (1970– ) Computer Programmer, Entrepreneur

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1970, Omar Wasow received his B.A. in Race and Ethnic Relations from Stanford University. Wasow is an Internet analyst for NewsChannel 4 in New York. His reports appear on the station’s various newscasts, and he is a frequent contributor to the station’s Web site. He also serves as the Internet analyst for MSNBC and National Public Radio. In addition, Wasow is the executive director of Black-Planet.com at Community Connect Inc., a Web site that facilitates online community among African Americans.

Wasow has become a leading commentator on the challenges and opportunities of new media and the new economy. The founder of New York Online, he was tagged by the New York Times as a “pioneer in Silicon Alley,” Newsweek magazine as one of the “50 most influential people to watch in cyberspace,” one of the “Silicon Alley Top 10” by the Village Voice, and “one of 50 to watch in 1999” by A-List magazine.

In 1993, Wasow predicted a shift in online demographics from hackers and academics to mainstream users, and rapidly produced the widely admired local online community New York Online. As his reputation grew, corporate clients like VIBE, Essence, Consumer Reports, Latina Magazine, The New Yorker, United Artists, and Samsung retained his company’s expertise to assist them in launching successful Internet ventures of their own.

Wasow is also a member of the Board of Contributors of USA Today, and writes an Internet business column for FeedMag.com. Active in a number of social issues, particularly school reform, Wasow is the co-chair of The Coalition for Independent Public Charter Schools. In that capacity, he helped push New York State to pass its recent breakthrough Charter Legislation. In 2003, the Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School, a K-6 he helped found, opened.

He is also a member of several nonprofit boards, including the New York Software Industry Association, WorldStudio, and The Refugee Project. As a result of Wasow’s longstanding commitment to civic participation, he was selected to be a fellow in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership program.

Wasow is pursuing a doctorate in African American studies and political science at Harvard.

LEVI WATKINS JR. (1945– ) Surgeon, Educator

Levi Watkins was born in Parsons, Kansas, in 1945, but his father, a college professor, moved the family to Alabama for a job with Alabama State University. Watkins grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where through his involvement in local churches he became acquainted with civil rights leaders Dr. Ralph David Abernathy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Both were prominent members of the Montgomery community, as was Watkins’ own father, a college professor. The teenager’s participation in civil rights issues did not stop him from excelling academically, as he graduated as valedictorian of his high school class and went on to earn a 1966 honors degree from Tennessee State University.

Watkins’ awareness of issues of racial inequality led him to apply to Vanderbilt University Medical School, and he first learned of his acceptance as its first African American student by reading the newspaper headline announcing the breakthrough. He graduated in 1970, and began his internship and surgical training at the prestigious medical school at Johns Hopkins University. Watkins also studied at Harvard University Medical School for a time, and conducted research that led to the lifesaving practice of prescribing angiotensin blockers for patients susceptible to heart failure.

In 1978, Watkins became Johns Hopkins’ first African American chief resident in cardiac surgery, and became a faculty member that year as well. Two years later, he made medical history with the first successful surgical implantation of an AID (automatic implantable defibrillator) device, which has been credited with saving countless lives by its ability to restore a normal heartbeat during an attack of arrhythmia. In 1991, he became a full professor of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins, another first for the institution, and was named dean for postdoctoral programs and faculty development. For several years, however, Watkins had been working to increase minority presence at this elite medical school, and he instituted a special minority recruiting drive when he was appointed to the medical school’s admissions committee in 1979.

Watkins has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, and in 2000, he received national recognition from the Guidant Corporation for his pioneering work on the automatic defibrillator.

DANIEL H. WILLIAMS (1856–1931) Surgeon/Physician

A pioneer in open heart surgery, Daniel Hale Williams was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on January 18, 1856. In 1878, he apprenticed to a prominent physician, which gave him the training to enter the Chicago Medical College in 1883.

Williams opened his office on Chicago’s South Side at a time when Chicago hospitals did not allow African American doctors to use their facilities. In 1891, Williams founded Provident Hospital, which was open to patients of all races. At Provident Hospital on July 10, 1893, Williams performed the operation upon which his later fame rests. A patient was admitted to the emergency ward with a knife wound in the pericardium, or the membrane enclosing the heart. With the aid of six staff surgeons, Williams made an incision in the patient’s chest and successfully repaired the tear. The patient fully recovered and was soon able to leave the hospital.

In 1894, President Cleveland appointed Williams surgeon-in-chief of Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. He completely reorganized and updated procedures at the hospital, adding specialty departments, organizing a system of horse-drawn ambulances, and initiating more sanitary medical practices. After some political infighting at Freedmen’s, he resigned his post in 1897 to return to Provident.

Williams was instrumental in the forming of the Medico-Chirurgical Society and the National Medical Association. In 1913, he was inducted into the American Board of Surgery at its first convention. Over the course of his career, Williams helped establish over 40 hospitals in 20 states to serve African American communities. He died on August 4, 1931, after a lifetime devoted to his two main interests—the NAACP and the construction of hospitals and training schools for African American doctors and nurses.

O. S. WILLIAMS (1921– ) Aeronautical Engineer

Oswald S. “Ozzie” Williams was born on September 2, 1921, in Washington, D.C., but he was raised in New York City, graduating from Boys High School in Brooklyn in 1938. He became interested in engineering as a teenager. He attended New York University and was the second African American to receive a degree in aeronautical engineering in 1943, and he earned his master’s in the field in 1947.

In 1950, Williams took an engineering position at Greer Hydraulics, Inc. There he was responsible for the development of the first experimental airborne radio beacon, which was used to locate crashed airplanes. However, it was never produced commercially. At Grumman International, where he was hired as a propulsion engineer in 1961, Williams managed the development of the Apollo Lunar Module reaction control subsystem. He was fully responsible for the $42 million effort for eight years. He managed the three engineering groups that developed the small rocket motors that guided the lunar module, the part of the Apollo spacecraft that actually landed on the moon. Williams went on to a career in marketing at Grumman, culminating in his election as a company vice president in 1974.

After leaving Grumman, Williams taught marketing at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, where he completed an M.B.A. in 1981.

Williams was a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and an associate fellow and chair of the institute’s Liquid Rockets Technical Committee.

GRANVILLE T. WOODS (1856–1910) Electrical engineer, Inventor

Sometimes referred to as the “Black Edison” because of his important electrical inventions, Granville T. Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio, on April 23, 1856. He attended school in Columbus until he was 10 years old, but was forced to leave school. Woods then began learning on the job as a machine shop apprentice and later became a machinist and blacksmith. As a young man, Woods attended night school and studied privately; he understood the importance of education and training in achieving his goals.

In 1872, Woods worked as a fireman on the Danville and Southern railroad in Missouri and later became an engineer. In his free time, he studied electronics. In 1874, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and worked in a mill in which iron and steel were rolled into plates and bars. He took a job aboard a British steamer in 1878 and was promoted to chief engineer of the steamer within two years.

Woods eventually settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1887, he patented a railway telegraph system that allowed moving trains to communicate with the station and with other trains in the area. Thus, it was possible to pinpoint the locations of trains between stations and avoid accidents and collisions. Thomas Edison later sued Woods, claiming that he was the first inventor of this “multiplex telegraph” system. After Woods won the suit, Edison offered Woods a prominent position in the engineering department at the Edison Electric Light Company in New York, but Woods rejected his offer. Alexander Graham Bell’s company purchased the rights to Woods’ telegraph system, thus allowing Woods the means to pursue inventing full-time.

In 1888, Woods developed an overhead system of electrical railway lines; this invention led to the overhead railroad system found in major cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, and New York City.

Woods became interested in thermal power and steam-driven engines, and in 1889, he filed his first patent for an improved steam boiler furnace.

During his illustrious career, Woods patented over 35 electrical inventions, which, in addition to Bell Telephone, were sold to major companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse. His automatic air brake, used to slow or stop trains, cut down on train accidents and was just one of the inventions that made the railways safer.

Woods spent the last years of his life in court battles, attempting to gain control over his own inventions. On January 30, 1910, he died in New York City, in near poverty.