Today, I am thankful for those who defy the odds and achieve success, even when the cards are fully stacked against them.
Today is historic in ensuring equality and civil rights to all individuals in the United States, irrespective of their background.
On this same day (Apr 11) in 1947, Jackie Robinson would shatter the color barrier in major league baseball, when he played his first game as a Brooklyn Dodger.
On this same day in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968 as a follow-on to the initial Civil Rights legislation issued in 1964. The latter law prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on factors such as race, national origin, or religion (of note, protection based on gender was added in 1974). For the first time, the 1968 act also made it a federal crime to forcibly intimidate, interfere, or injure anyone based on these same factors.
You probably know both of those stories. Today, I thought it might be fun to share with you the story of a true scientist, pioneer, and visionary who embodies the importance of these achievements. On this same day in 1899, an African American male child named Percy L. Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama. The grandson of slaves, Percy was raised in a racist Jim Crow culture. Nevertheless, his poor, uneducated parents emphasized the importance of education, and he studied diligently in high school, all the while garnering a love for science, chemistry, and biology.
However, Percy’s path to achieving his goal of becoming a chemist was arduous. Although he earned the right to attend DePauw University in Indiana, he was forbidden to reside in the college dormitories or partake in meals on campus cafeterias. Nevertheless, he persevered by living in the attic of a fraternity in return for work in the house. He went on to become the valedictorian of the senior class of 1920, earning Phi Beta Kappa honors.
Thereafter, Percy hoped to pursue a PhD in chemistry, and even won a 1923 fellowship in chemistry, which allowed for him to train at Harvard. However, the Cambridge college rescinded his teaching assistant role, fearing students at the school would not want to be instructed by an African American. Unable to complete his PhD at Harvard or elsewhere in the US, he earned his doctorship in Chemistry at the University of Vienna – a place unencumbered by the racial undertones in the US.
When he finally retuned home with his doctorate degree in hand, he changed the world. In 1935, he elucidated the steps in the synthesis of physostigmine, a medicine still used today to treat glaucoma and gastric disorders. As an employee at Glidden Company, he led the creation of a facility to isolate soy protein from soybeans. Percy pioneered the use of soybean sterols as a source for the large-scale development of important hormones, such as progesterone, testosterone, and even cortisone. His work was instrumental to reduce the chemical synthesis of multiple agents, thereby reducing the cost of crucial pharmaceuticals in the post-war era. In his career, he patented 130 applications and became the first African American chemist (and only the second African American scientist overall) to be inducted in the National Academy of Sciences.
In a PBS documentary of his life published in 2007, Julian was called the ‘forgotten genius.’ On this day when we celebrate the groundbreaking athletic achievements of Jackie Robinson and the civil rights milestones of Martin Luther King Jr., let’s not forget the African American scientists, like Dr. Percy Julian, who trail blazed a path for other students of different races to follow.
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