Three Pioneering Scientists of Black History

Dr. Percy Lavon Julian, PhD (1899 - 1975)

Percy Julian was born in 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama. He was the grandson of slaves, but both parents were college graduates of Alabama State. Julian graduated from DePauw University as valedictorian. He attended Harvard University to pursue an M.S in chemistry, but since Harvard did not allow black teaching assistants, Julian was unable to earn a PhD at the university. Instead, he pursued his PhD in Germany at the University of Vienna. Away from the Jim Crow laws, Julian thrived in Europe. He became the third African American to receive a PhD in chemistry. 
 
Julian returned to the states where he taught and researched at his alma mater, Depauw University. At Depauw he achieved his career-defining accomplishment, synthesizing physostigmine, used to treat glaucoma, from Calabar beans. 
 
After his success in the lab, Depauw still refused to hire Julian as a full-time professor. He left academia to work for Glidden Company where he invented Aero-Foam, a soy-based protein product used to put out fires. He also perfected the extraction of sterols from soybean oil which allowed him to synthesize progesterone and testosterone in large quantities. Previously, steroids were extracted from animal tissue. The process produced low yields and was expensive. Synthesizing steroids from soy enabled widespread medicinal use of steroid hormones. Julian also developed protocols for high yeild manufacturing of hydrocortisone and cortisone.
 
After Glidden, Dr. Percy Julian started his own lab, Julian Laboratories. In 1961 he sold his company, making him a self-made millionaire. 

Sources and suggested reading:
Percy Julian. Biography https://www.biography.com/scientist/percy-julian.

Percy Lavon Julian | Science History Institute. https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/percy-lavon-julian.

The Life of Percy Lavon Julian ’20 - DePauw University. https://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/22969/.

Dr. Mae Jemmison, MD (1956 - Present)

Mae Jemison, born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, dreamed of being an astronaut at a young age. She was inspired by the fictional Star Trek character, Lieutenant Uhura, a female black cryptographer on the Starship Enterprise (proof that diversity and role models matter!). 
 
Jemison attended Stanford where she majored in chemical engineering and African American studies. After college, Jemison attended Cornell medical school and received her MD in 1981. Jemison dedicated her early career to working in underdeveloped countries. She worked in a Cambodian refugee camp, worked for Flying Doctors in East Africa, and traveled to Sierra Leone and Liberia as a member of the Peace Corps. 
 
After the Peace Corps, she took engineering courses and applied to NASA’s astronaut program. Jemison traveled to space on September 12, 1992, the first black woman to do so. In space, she researched weightlessness and motion sickness. 
 
After her trip to space, Jemison taught at Dartmouth College and began an organization, Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing countries.

Sources and suggested reading:
Ignotofsky, Rachel. Women in Science, 50 Fearless Pioneers who Changed the World.
 
Mae C. Jemison. Biography https://www.biography.com/astronaut/mae-c-jemison.

Mae Jemison. National Women’s History Museum https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mae-jemison.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, MD (1856-1931)

Daniel Hale Williams was born in Pennsylvania in 1856, just five years before the civil war. Early on, Williams worked as a shoemaker’s apprentice. Disliking the work, he quit and decided to give barbering a try. At 17 years old, his barbershop failed, and he decided to pursue medicine. He apprenticed under Dr. Henry Palmer, a renowned civil war era surgeon, and then attended Chicago Medical College (now Northwestern).
 
Dr. Williams initially practiced medicine at the south side dispensary where he would service both black and white patients. He began to earn a reputation as a skilled surgeon and implemented sanitary practices based on the newly developed germ theory. As a black doctor, he was denied privileges at Chicago hospitals which also only accepted white patients. He, therefore, opened Provident Hospital, a hospital that admitted black patients, hired a multiracial staff, and allowed the training of black doctors and nurses. It was at Provident Hospital where Dr. Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery on a stab wound victim, James Cornish. Cornish survived the surgery and lived another 20 years. 
 
In 1894 Williams moved to DC to become the Chief Surgeon of Freedman’s Hospital, the highest-ranking medical position a black man could hold in the US. He met and married his wife, Alice Johnson, and returned to Chicago a few years later. As Chief Surgeon at Provident, he was one of the first surgeons to successful suture a spleen. 
 
Williams could be remembered first and foremost for his skill as a surgeon, but his legacy was his advocacy for black doctors, nurses, and patients. He enabled the medical training of a generation of black physicians and nurses while also allowing black patients the quality treatment at hospitals they had been denied previously.  

Sources and suggested reading:

Daniel Hale Williams. Biography https://www.biography.com/scientist/daniel-hale-williams.

Daniel Hale Williams and the First Successful Heart Surgery | Columbia University Department of Surgery. https://columbiasurgery.org/news/daniel-hale-williams-and-first-successful-heart-surgery.

Who Was Dr. Daniel Hale Williams? | Jackson Heart Study Graduate Training and Education Center. http://www.jsums.edu/gtec/dr-daniel-hale-williams/.

Author

Kerry McPherson, PhD Candidate studying biomedical sciences. Researches proteins implicated in acquired chemoresistance in cancer. Passionate about STEM education outreach, climate change policy advocacy, and inclusivity.