"William Claytor"(1-4-1908-19657)participate

Born in Norfolk Virginia,William earned his A.B. and M.A. from Howard University.He went on to earn his Ph.D.from the University of Pennsylvania in 1933.William was a brilliant student.While at Penn,he won a Harrison Scholarship in Mathematics in his second year,and took the most prestigious award offered at Penn at that time,a Harrison Fellowship in Mathematics,in his his third and final year of of graduate studies.William dissertation delighted the Penn faculty,for it provided a significant advances in the theory of Peano continua-a branch of point-set topology.He was the third African American to earn  a Ph.d in mathematics following Elbert Cox (Ph.D.,Cornell,1925 ) and Dudley Woodard,Sr. (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1928).Upon completion of the Ph.D.,William accepted a teaching position at West Virginia State College where he remained for three years.In 1937,William was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship and pursued post-doctoral studies at the University where he had great promises as a researcher in Mathematics.When a position opened,the University of Michigan would not offer it to him,apparently,afraid of the possible reaction.The student newspaper took up the issue but to no avail.The mathematician Kline tried to get Dr.made Claytor made fellow at Princeton University,but Princeton's administration said the students might object to a "culud person."William got the same reaction from other research institution,which meant he could not get a position wither other topologists during his time, a serious drawback to his work.After encountering this such prejudice and after leaving Michigan,William lost interest in research.During World War II,he served in the U.S. Army (1941-1945) where he taught in the field of Anti-Aircraft Artilery from December 1942-December 1944.In the 1930s and 1940s math was filled with racist mathematicians;R.L.Moore was one of the dominant figures in the same field of Mathematicians as William -- topology.R.L. was so racist that,even in the 1960s and 70s, he prohibited African-Americans from attending his classes.Dr.Claytor did make presentations at meetings of the American Mathematics Society,yet was never allowed to stay in hotels where the meetings were held.Instead local blacks had to find him lodging.For years afterwards,many tried to get William to participate in meetings of the American Mathematics Society,but had grown bitter and refused.It was here in 1941 that William first met David Blackwell AT Chanute Field,near Urbana,Illinois.David was was increasingly aware of the immensity of William mathematics genius.In 1947,the year David became chairman of the Mathematics Department at Howard University,William was brought to Howard.Soon after William married Dr.Mae Pullins,a lover of Mathematics thought her Ph.D. was in psychology.He remained at Howard until his retirement in 1965.