"Josephine-Silone-Yates"{1852 or November 15,1859-September 3,1912}

Trained in chemistry was one of the first African-American teachers hired at Lincoln University in Jefferson City,Missouri,and,upon her promotion,the first African-American to head a college science department.She may have been the first African-American to hold a full professorship at any U.S. college or university.

She was also significant in the African-American women's club movement.Josephine was a correspond for the Woman's era (the first monthly magazine published by African-American women in the United States) and wrote for other magazines as well.Josephine was instrumental in establishing women's clubs for African-American women: She was the first president of the Women's League of Kansas City (1893) and the second president of the National



Silone.During her childhood,her family lived with her maternal Association of Colored Women (1900-04).

Josephine was the second daughter of Alexander & Parthenia Reeves granddaddy,a freed slave,Lymas Reeves.Her mama taught her to read from the bible.She started school at the age of six,and was rapidly advanced by her teachers.

Josephine's uncle Rev.John Bunyan Reeve,was the pastor of the Lombard Street Central Church in Philadelphia.At the age of 11,she went,to live with him so that she could attend Institute for Colored Youth.There she was mentored by its director,Fanny Jackson Coppin.The next year,
Rev.Reeve moved to Howard University,and Josephine went to live with her maternal aunt Francis I Girard,in Newport,Rhode Island.There she attended grammar school and later Rogers High School.She was was the only African-American student at both,but was given respect and support by her teachers.Her science teacher considered her his brightest pupil and enable her to do additional laboratory work in chemistry.She graduated as valedictorian of Rogers High School class of 1877 and receive for scholarship.She was the first African-American student to graduate from Rogers High School.

Josephine chose to attend the Rhode Island State Normal School in Providence to become a teacher,rather than pursuing a university career.She graduated in 1879,with honors, the only African-American student in her class.Josephine was the first African-American certified in the schools of Rhode Island.She later receive a master's degree from the National University of Illinois.

Josephine was one of the first African-American teachers hired at Lincoln University in Jefferson City,Missouri.President Inman Edward Page considered it essential to replace the previous white faculty with African-American teachers,as role models for the school's African-American students.The teachers lived on campus in the dormitories with the students.Josephine taught chemistry,elocution,and English literature. Upon her promotion to head of the natural science department,she became the first African-American woman to head a college science department and then the first woman to hold a full professorship at any college or university.

Josphine was clear about her purpose in teaching.In a 1904 essay,she wrote: "The aim of all true education is to give to body and soul all the beauty,strength,and perfection of which they are capable,to fit the individual for complete living.

In 1889,she married William Ward Yates.Many schools prohibited married from teaching, and upon her marriage, Josephine gave up her teaching position at Lincoln.She moved to Kansas City,Missouri,where William was the principal of Phillips School. Her daughter Josephine Silone Yates,Jr was born in 1890.Her son William Byden Yates was born in 1895.

In Kansas City,Josephine became active in the African-American women's club movement.She was correspondent for the Woman's Era (the first monthly magazine published by African-American women in the United States), and also wrote for the Southern Workman,The Voice of  the Negro,the Indianapolis Freeman,and the Kansas City Rising Son,
under her her own name and the pseudonym "R.K. Porter." Racial uplift
was one of many topic Josephine spoke and wrote about.She was identified as an exemplar of her race and included as one of  100 "American's greatest Negroes" in Twenieth Century Negro Literature; or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro in 1902.Her paper addressed the question "Did the American Negro make,in the nineteeth century,achievements did he make? She also published poetry,including "The Isles of Peace,"  "The Zephyr",and
"Royal To-Day."

Josephine helped to found the women's Leaague of Kansas City,an organization for the self-help and social betterment for African-American women,and became its first president in 1893. In 1896 the Women's League joined the National Association of Colored Women (NACW),  a federation of similar clubs from around the country.She serve with the NACW for four years as the treasurer or vice-president (1897-1901) and for four years as president (1901-1904).


A testament to Josephines' accomplishment and acclaim may be found in a speech presented by Anna Julia Cooper in 1893 at the World's Congress of  Representative Women in Chicago:

"In organized efforts for self help and benevolence also our women been active.The Colored Women's League,of  which I am at present corresponding secretary,has active,energetic branches in the South and West.The branch in Kansas City,with a membership of upward one hundred and fifty,already has begun under their vigorous president.Mrs.Yates,the erection of a building for friendless girls.

In 1902,she was recalled by the president of Lincoln Institute to serve as the head of the department of English and history.In 1908 Josephine requested to resign due to illness,the Board of Regents did not accept,and she stayed on as the advisor to women at Lincoln.William died in 1910,after which Josephine chose to return to Kansas City.She died after a short illness.

"Annie-Jane-Easley" [April 23,1933-June 25,2011]

Was an African-American computer scientist,mathematician,and rocket scientist.Anna worked for the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)  and its predecessor,the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur.Rocket stage and one of the first African-Americans in her field.

She was to Bud McCroy & Willie Sims in Birmingham,Alabama.In the days before the Civil Rights Movement,educational and career opportunities for African-American children were very limited.African American children were educated separately from white children and their schools were most inferior to white schools.Annie was fortunate in that her mama told her that she could be anything she wanted but she have to work at it.She encouraged her to get a good education and from the fifth grade through high school,she attended a parochial school and was valedictorian of her graduating class.

After  high school she went to New Orleans,Louisiana,to Xavier University,then an African-American Roman Catholic University,where she majored in Pharmacy for about two years.

In 1954,she returned to Birmingham briefly.As part of of the Jim Crow Laws that established and maintained racial inequality,African Americans were required to pass an onerous literacy test and pay a poll tax in order to vote.She remembers the test given looking at her application and saying only,"You went to Xavier University.Two dollars." Subsequently,she helped other African Americans prepare for the test.

In 1963,racial segregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants ended as a result of the Birmingham Campaign,and in 1964,the twenty-fourth Amendmet outlawed the poll tax in Federal elections.It was not until 1965 that the Voting Rights Act elimated the literacy test.

Shortly thereafter she married and moved to Cleveland with the intention of continuing her studies.Unfortunately,the local university had ended its pharmacy program a short time before and no nearby alternative existed.

In 1955,she read a local newspaper article about a story on twin sisters who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as " computers" and the next day she applied for a job.Within two weeks she was hired,one of four African Americans of about 2500 employees.She began her career as a Mathematics and Computer Engineer at the NACA Lewis Propulsion Laboratory (which became NASA Lewis Research Center,1958-1999,and subsequently the John H.Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland,Ohio.She continued her education while working for the agency and in 1977,she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Cleveland State University.As part of continuing education,Anna,worked through specialization courses offered by NASA.

Her 34-year career included developing and implementing computer code that analyzed alternative power,technologies,supported the Centaur high energy conversion upper rocket stage,determine solar,wind batteries,such as those used in in electric utility vehicles.Her computer applications have been used to identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially availiable technologies.She retired in 1989 (some sources say 1991).

Anna's work with the Centaur project helped as technological foundations for the space shuttle launches of communication,military and weather satelities.Her work contributed to the 1997 flight to Saturn of the Cassini probe,the launcher of which had the Centaur as it upper stage.

"Percy-Lavon-Julian" (April 11,1899-April 19,1975)

UWas an African American research chemist and pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants.He was the first to synthesize the natural product physotigmine,and a pioneer in the industrial largescale chemical synthesis of the human hormones progesterone and testosterone from plant sterols such stingmasterol and sitosterol.His work laid the foundation for the steroid drug industry's production of contisone,other corticosteroids,and birth control pills.

He later started his own company to synthesize steroid intermediates from the wild Mexican yam.His work helped greatly reduce the coast of steroid intermediates to large multinational pharmaceutical companies,helping to significantly expand the use of  several important drugs.

He received more than 130 chemical patents.Percy was one of the first African Americans to receive a doctorate in chemistry.He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences,and the second African American scientist inducted (behind David Blackwell) from any field.

He was born in Montgomery,Alabama,as the first of six born to James Sumner Julian & Elizabeth Lena Julian nee Adams.Both of his parents were graduates of what was to be Alabama State University.His daddy,whose own daddy had been a slave.Was employed as a clerk in the Railway Service of the United States Post Office,while his mama worked as a schoolteacher.Percy grew up in the time of racist Jim Grow culture and legal regime in the southern United States.Among his childhood memories was finding  a lynched man hanging from a tree while walking in the woods near his home.At a time when access to an education beyond the eight grade was extremely rare for African American,Percy's parents steered all of  their children toward higher education.

Percy attended De Pauw University in Greencastle,Indiana.The college accepted few African Americans students.The segregated nature of the town forced social humiliations.Percy was not allowed to live in the college dormitories and first stayed in an off campus boarding home,which refused to serve him meals.It took him days before he could find an establishment where he could eat.Julian later found work firing the furnance,waiting tables,and doing odd jobs in a fraternity house; in return,he was allowes to sleep in the attic and eat at the house.Percy graduated from DePauw  in 1920 as a Phi Beta Kappa and Valedictorian.By 1930 Percy's daddy would move the entire family to Greencastle so that his children could attend College at DePauw.He still worked as a railroad postal clerk.

After graduating from DePauw,Percy wanted obtain his doctorate in chemistry,he learned that he would be difficult for an African-American to do so.Instead he obtained a position as a chemistry instructor at Fisk University.In 1923 he receive an Austin Fellowship in chemistry,which allowed him to attend Harvard University to obtain his M.S. worried that Euro-American students would resent being taught by an African American,Harvard withdrew Percy's teaching assistantship,making it impossible for him  to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard.

In 1929,while an instructor at Howard University,Percy receive a Rockefeller Foundation to continue his graduate work at the University of Vienna,where he earned his Ph.D.  in 1931. He studied under Ernst Spath and was considered an impressive student.In Europe he found freedom from the racial prejudices that had stiffied him in the States.Percy freely participated in intellectual social gatherings,went to the opera and found greater acceptance among his peers.Percy was one of the first African Americans to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry,after St.Elmo Brady and  Dr.Edward  M.A. Chandler.

After returning from Vienna,Percy taught for one year at Howard University.At Howard,in part due to his position as a department head,Percy became caught in university politics,setting off an embrassing chain of events.At university president Mordecai Wyatt Johnson's request,he goaded white Professor of chemistry,Jacob Shohan (Ph.D from Harvard), into resigning.In late May 1932, Jacob retaliated by releasing to the local African American newsppers the letters Percy had written to him from Vienna.The letters described "a variety of subjects from wine,pretty Viennese women,music and dances,to chemical experiments plans for the new chemical building.

In the letters,he spoke with familiarity,with some derision,of specific members of the Howard University Faculty,terming one well-known Dean, an "ass."

Around this time,Percy also became entangled  in an interpersonal conflict with his laboratory assistant,Robert Thompson.Percy had recommended Robert for dismissal in March 1932.Robert sued Percy for alienating the affections of his wife," Anna Roselle Thompson,stating he had seen them together in a sexual tryst.Percy counter-sued him for libel.When  Robert was fired,he too gave the paper intimate and personal letters which had written to him from Vienna,Dr. Percy's letter revealed "how he fooled the [Howard] president into accepting his plans for the chemistry building and " how he bluffed his good friend into appointing" a professor of Percy's liking.Through the summer of 1932,the Baltimore Afro-American published all of Percy's letters.Eventually,the scandal and accompany pressure Percy to resign.He lost his position and everything he had worked for.

Some happiness for Dr.Percy, was to come from this scandal.On December 24,1935 he married Anna Roselle (Ph.D. in Sociology,1937,University of Pennsylvania).They had two children: Percy Lavon Julian, Jr. (August 31,1940-February 24,2008),who became a prestigious civil rights lawyer in Madison,Wisconsin,and Faith Roselle Julian (1944) who still  resides in their Oak Park home often makes inspirational speeches about her daddy and his contributions to science.

At his lowest point in his career,Percy former mentor,William Blanchard,threw him a much needed-needed lifeline.William offered Percy a position to teach organic chemistry at DePauw University in 1932.Percy then helped Josef Piki,a fellow student at the University of Vienna,to come to the United States to work with him at DePauw.In 1935 Percy and Josef completed the total synthesis of physotigmine and confirmed the structural formula assigned to it.Robert Robinson of  Oxford University in the U.K. had been the first to publish a synthesis of physotigmine,Percy noticed that the melting point of Robert's end product was wrong,indicating that he had not created it.When Percy completed his synthesis,the melting point matched the correct one for natural phyostigmine from the Calabar bean.

Percy also extracted stigmasterol whick took its name Physotigma venenosum which took its name from the west Africa calabar bean that hoped could serve as raw material for synthesis of human steroids hormones.At about,this time,in 1934, Butenandt and Fernholz in Germany,had shown that stigmasterol,isolated from soybean oil,could be converted to progesterone by synthetic organic chemistry.

In 1936,Percy was denied a professorship at DePauw for racial reasons.DuPont had offered a job to fellow chemist Josef Piki but declined to hire Percy, despite his superlative qualifications as an organic chemist,apologizing that they were "unaware he was a Negro." Percy next applied  for a job at the Institute of Paper (IPC) in Appleton,Wisconsin.Appleton was a Sundown town,forbidding African Americans from staying  overnight, stating directly: "No Negro should be bed or boarded overnight in Appleton."

Meanwhile,Percy had written to the Glidden Company  a supplier of soybeans oil products,to to request a five-gallon sample of the oil to use as his starting point for the synthesis of human steroidal sex hormones (in part because his wife was suffering from infertility). After receiving the request,W.J.O'Brien.a vice-president at Glidden,made a telephone call to Percy,offering him the position of director of research at Glidden's Soya Products Division in Chicago. He was very likely offered the job by W.J. because he was fluent in German,and Glidden had just purchased a modern continuous countercurrent solvent extraction plant from Germany for the extraction of vegetable oil from soybeans for paints and other uses.

Percy supervised the assembly of the plant at Glidden when he arrived in 1936.He then designed and supervised construction of the world's first plant for the production of industrial grade,isolated soy protein from oil-free soybean meal.Isolated soy protein could replace the more expensive milk casein in industrial applications such as coating and sizing,of paper,glue for making Douglas fir plywood,and in manfacture of water-based paints.

At the start of World War II,Glidden sent a sample of Percy's isolated soy protein to National Foam System Inc. (today a unit Kiddle Fire Fighting),which used it to develop Aero-O-Foam,the U.S. Navy's beloved fire-fighting "bean soup." While it was not exactly Percy's brainchild,meticulous care in  the preparation of the soy protein made the fire fighting foam possible.When a hydrolysate of isolated soy protein was fed into a water stream,the mixture was converted into a foam by means of an aerating nozzle.The soy protein foam was used  to smother oil and gas fires aboard ships and was particularly useful on aircraft carriers.It saved the lives of thousands of sailors and airmen.Citing this achievement,in 1947 the NAACP awarded Percy the Spingarn Medal,its highest honor.

Percy's research at Glidden changed direction in 1940 when he began work on synthesizing progesterone,and testosterone from the plant sterols stigmasterol and sitosterol,isolated from soybean oil by a foam technique he invented and patented.At that time clinicians were discovering many uses for the newly discovered hormones.However, one minute quantities could be extracted from hundreds of pounds of the spinal cords of animals.

In 1940 Percy was able to produce 100 lb of mixed soy sterols daily,which a value of $10,000 ($ 79,000 today) as sex hormones.Percy was soon ozonizing 100 pounds daily of mixed sterol dibromides.The soy stigmasterol was easily converted into commercial quantities of the female hormone progesterone,and the first  pound of progesterone he made,valued at $63,500 ($503,000 today),was shipped to the buyer,Upjohn,in an armed car.Production of other sex hormones soon followed.

His work made possible the production of these hormones on a large industrial scale,with the potential of reducing the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies.Percy and his coworkers obtained patents for Glidden on key processes for preparation of progesterone and testosterone from soybean plants sterols. Product patents held by a former cartel of  European pharmaceutical companies had prevented a significant reduction in wholesale and retail prices for clinical use of these hormones in the 1940s.He saved many lives with this discovery.

On April 13,1949,rheumatologist Philip Hench at the Mayo Clinic announced the dramatic effectiveness of cortisone in treating rheumatold arthritis.The cortisone was produced by Merck at great expense using a complex 36-step synthesis developed by chemist Lewis Sarett,starting with deoxycholic acid from cattle bile acids.On September 30,1949,Percy announced an improvement in the process of producing cortisone.This eliminated the need to use osmium tetroxide,which was a rare and expensive chemical.By 1950,Glidden could begin producing closely related compounds which might have partial cortisone activity.Percy also announced the synthesis,starting with the cheap and readily available pregnenolone (synthesized from soybean oil sterol stigmasterol) of the steroid cortexolone (also known as Reichstein's Substance S),a molecule that differed from cortisone by a single oxygen atom; and possibly 17a-hydroxyprogesterone and pregnenetriolone,which he hoped might also be effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis,unfortunately they were not.

On April 5,1952,biochemist Durley Peterson and microbiologist Herbert Murray at Upjohn published the first report of a fermentation process for the microbial 11a-hydroxycortisone from progesterone or Compound S,respectively,which could then by further chemical steps be converted to cortisone 11-hydroxprogesterone or 11a-hydroxycortisone from progesterone or Compound S,respectively,which could then by further chemical steps be converted to cortisone or 11-hydroxycortisone (cortisol).

After two years,Glidden abandoned production of cortisone concentrate on Substance S.Percy developed a multistep process for conversion of pregnenolone,available in abundance from soybean oil sterols,to cortexolone.In 1952,Glidden,which had been producing progesterone and other steroids from soybean oil,shut down its own production and began importing them from Mexico through an arrangement with Diosynth (a small Mexican company founded in 1947 by Russell Marker after leaving Syntex).Glidden's cost of production of cortexolone was relatively,high,Upjohn decided to use progesterone,available in large quantity at low cost from Syntex,to produce cortisone and hydrocortisone.

In 1953,Glidden decided to leave the steroid business,which had been realtivively uprofitable over the years despite Percy's innovative work.On December 1,1953,Percy left Glidden after 18 years,giving up a salary of nearly $50,000 a year (equivalent to $ 440,000 in 2015) to found his own company,Julian Laboratories,inc.,taking over the small,concrete-block building of Suburban Chemical Company in Franklin Park Illinois.

On December 2,1953 Pfizer  acquired exclusive licenses of Glidden patents for the synthesis S. Pfizer had developed a ferment process for microbial 11 oxygenation of teroids in a single step that could convert Substance S. directly to 11-hydrocortisone (cortisol),with Syntex undertaking large-scale production of cortexolone  at very low cost.

Circa 1950,Percy moved his family to the Chicago suburb of Oak Park,becoming the first African American family to reside there.Although some residents welcomed them into the community,there was also opposition.Before  they even moved in,on Thanksgiving Day,1950,their home was fire bombed.Later after they moved in,the house was attacked with dynamite on June 12,1951.The attacks galvanized the community,and a community was formed to support the Julians.Percy's son later recounted that during these times,he and his daddy often kept watch over the family's property by sitting in a tree with a shotgun.

In 1953,Percy founded his own research firm,Julian Laboratories,Inc.He brought many of his best chemists,including African Americans and women,from Glidden to his own company.Percy won a contract to provide Upjohn with $ million worth of progesterone (equivalent to $16 million today).To complete against syntax,he would have to use the same Mexican yam Mexican barbasco trade as his starting material.Percy used his own money and borrowed from friends to build a processing plant in Mexico,he could not get a permit from the government to harvest yams.Abraham Ziotnik,a former Jewish University of Vienna classmate whom Percy had helped escape from the Nazi European holocaust,led a search to find a new source of the yam in Guatemala for the company.

In July 1956,Percy and executives of two other American companies trying to enter the Mexican steroid intermediates market appeared before a U.S. Senate subcommittee.They testified that Syntex was using undue influence to monopolized access to the Mexican yam.The hearings resulted in Syntex signing a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department.While it did not admit to restraining trade,it promised not do so in the future.Whithin five years,years large American multinational pharmaceutical companies had acquired all six producers of steroids intermediates in Mexico,four of which had been Mexican-owned.

Syntex reduced the cost of steroid intermediates more than 250-fold over twelve years,from $80per gram in 1943-$o.31 per gram in 1955.Competition from Upjohn and General Mills,which had together made very substantial in the production of progesterone from stigmasterol,forced the price of Mexican progesterone to less than $.15 per gram in 1957.The price continued to fall,bottoming out at $0.08 per gram in 1968.

In 1958,Upjohn purchased 6,900 Kg of progesterone from Syntex at $0.135 per gram.6,201 Kg of progesterone from Searle (who had acquired Pesa)  at $.143 per gram,5.150 kg of progesterone from Julian Laboratories at $0.14 per gram,and 1,925 kg of progesterone from General Mills (who had acquired Protex) at $.142 per gram.

Julian Laboratories chemists found a way to quadruple the yield on a product on which they were barely breaking even.Julian reduced their price for the product from $4,000 per kg to $400 per kg.He sold the company in 1961 for $2.3 million (equivalent to $18 million today).The U.S. and Mexican facilities were purchased by Smith Kline,and Julian's chemical plant Guatemala was purchased by Upjohn.

In 1964,Percy founded Julian Associates and Julian Research Institute,which he managed for the rest of his life.

.

"John-Edward-Hodge" {October 12,1914-January 3,1996}

He was the son of Anna Belle Jackson & John Alfred Hodge.His active mind found

certain games and sports to be challenge.He won a number of model airplanes contests in Kansas City.He became an expert at billiards in college,and later  in Peoria.Chess was another fascination for John,his daddy,and his son,John Laurent.He graduated from Summer High School in 1932 and got his A.B. degree in 1936.John received his M.A. in 1940 from the University of Kansas where he was elected to the Pl-ii Beta Kappa scholastic society and the Pi Mu Epsilon honorary mathematics organization.He did his postgraduate studies at Bradley University between 1946 & 1960 and received a diploma from the Federal Executive Institute,Charlottesville,Virginia.


John career began as an oil chemist in Topeka, Kansas at the Department of Inspections.He was also a professor of chemistry at Western University,Quindaro,Kansas.In 1941 he began nearly 40 years of service at the USDA Nonhem Regional Research Center in Peoria Illinois;where he retired in 1980.During that time (1972) he was visiting professor of chemistry at the University of Campinas,Sao Paulo,Brazil.He also receive a Superior Service Award at Washington,D.C.,from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1953,and two research awards also.He was chairman of the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry in 1964,and was an adjunct chemistry professor at Bradley University in 1984-85.


John encouraged young African American college students to study chemistry.He made tours of historically African American colleges in the South to assess their laboratory capabilities,and recruited summer interns for for research experiences.John  was on the board of directors of Carver Community center from 1952 to 1958.In 1953 he was secretary of the Citizens Committee for Peoria Public Schools;as well  as secretary for the Mayor's Commission for Senior Citizen.1982-85.John was an advisory board member at the Central Illinois Agency in 1975.

"Emmett-Chappelle" (October 25,1925)

His scientic research and the fourteen United States patents he received for his inventions make his contributions vital to the scientific world.He attended the University of California in 1950 and in 1954 receive a Bachelor of Science degree.Remarkably,without graduate training he then worked as instructor biochemistry for three years at Meharry Medical College in Nashville,Tennessee.In 1953 he enrolled at the University of Washington where he pursued advanced degrees.Emmett eaened a master's degree in Science with a focus on biochemistry in 1954 but never completed his Ph.D.Instead he worked for a various companies as a biochemist and during that period receive the first of the fourteen U.S. patents.


By 1966 Emmett was employed at the National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration (NASA) where he was an exobiologist (someone who engaged in the search for extraterrestrial life and the effect of extraterrestrial surroundings on living organisms) and astrochemist (the chemist of astronomical objects and interstellar space). In 1977 he went on to work for the Goddard Space Flight Center where he was a scientific analyst responsible for monitoring remote sensing devices.


Some of his work includes the detection of adenosine triphosphate (ATP),an important compound in all living orgaisms.Through the patented method he developed,exobiologists are able to more speedily detect bacteria otside the earth's atmosphere.The presence of bacteria is considered strong evidence for extraterrestrial life.Emmett He is discovered a method for determining the health of forest vegetation.His method measures the amount fluorescence over a forest and monitors the amount of photosynthesis in a selected area.Emmett has also produced more than 35-reviewed scientific or technical publications,nearly 50 conference papwes,an co-authored or edited numerous publications.


He retired in 2001 and is now living with his daughter and son-in-law in Baltimore Maryland.

"Annie Jane-Easley"(April 23,1933-June 25,2011)

Was an African American computer scientist,mathematician and rocket scientist.she worked for the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor,the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).She was a leading of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage of the first African American in her field.


She was born to Bud McCrory & Willie Sims in Birmingham Alabama.In the days before the Civil Rights Movement,educational and career opportunities for African American children and their schools were most often inferior to white school.Annie was fortunate that her mama told that she could be anything she wanted but she would have to work at it.Annie encouraged her to get a good education and from the fifth grade through high school,she attended a parochial and was valedictorian of her graduating class.


After high school she went to New Orleans,to Xavier University,then an African American Roman Catholic University,where she majored in Pharmacy for about two years.


In 1954,Annie returned toBirmingham briefly.As part of the Jim Crow laws that established and maintained racial inequality,African Americans were required to pass an onerous test literacy test and pay poll tax in order to vote.Annie remembers the test giver looking at her application and saying,"You went to Xavier University.Two dollars." Subsequently,she helped other African Americans prepare for the test.In 1963,racial segregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants ended as a result of the Birmingham Campaign,and in 1964 the Twenty-Fourth Amendment outlawed the poll tax in Federal elections.But it was not until 1965 that the Voting Rights Act elimated the literacy test.


Shorty thereafter,Annie married and moved to Cleveland with the intention of continuing her studies.Unfortunately,the local university had ended its pharmacy program a short time before and no nearby alternative existed.


In 1955,she read a local newspaper article about a story on twin sisters who worked who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as "computers" and the next day she applied for a job.Within two weeks she was hired,one of four,African Americans of about 2500 employees.Annie began her career as a Mathematician and Computer Engineer at the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (which became NASA Lewis Research Center,1958-1999,and subsequently the John Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland,Ohio.Annie contined her education while working for the agency and in 1977,she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and from Cleveland State  University.As part of continuing education,Annie worked through specialization courses offered by NASA.


Her 34-year career included developing and implementing computer code that analyzed alternative power technologies,supported the Centaur high-energy upper rocket stage,determined,solar wind ane energy projects,ideentified.energy conversion systems to solve energy problems.Her energy assignments included studies to determine the life use of storage batteries,such as those used in electric utility vehicles.Her computer applications have been used yo identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially available technologies.Annie retired in 1989(some sources say 1991).


Her early work with the Centaur project helped as techmological foundations for the space shuttle launches of communications,military and weather satellities.Her work contributed to the 1997 flight of the Cassini probe ,in the launcher of which had the Centaur as its upper stage.

"Dr.James-LuValle"(November 10,1912-January 30,1993)

Was an American athlete and scientist James won the bronze medal in the 400

meters in the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin.

He was also an accomplished chemist,and the founder of the Graduate Students Association at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

He was born in San Antonio Texas.His family lived for a while in Washington, D.C.,before moving to Los Angeles,California while James was in elementary.He completed in track & field at LA Polytechnic High School (later renamed John H. Francis Polytechnic High School),while working as page for the Los Angeles Public Library.

He enrolled at UCLA in 1931,turning down athletic scholarships to the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Notre Dame.Nicknamed the "Westwood Whirlwind," he was the captain of the track and field team.In 1934 he ran 20.8 seconds for 220y,with Bob Kiesel  and Foy Draper being the only sprinters in the world to match James that year.

Despite his athletic prowess,he admitted his main focus was always academics.He did not have an athletic scholarship,given UCLA did not award track scholarships back then.

He paid his way through school with a Regents' scholarship and a job in the chemistry lab.He made friends with future Nobel Laureate Glenn T. Seaborg who was his teaching assistant for one class.He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in chemistry in June 1936,having a straight-A average.He also won the Jake Gimball Award for most outstanding all around senior.

James won the 400m at the Western Olympic Trials with a time of 46.3 his lifetime best.

In the Olympics,he won the bronze medal in the 400m with a time of 46.8 seconds on August 7.He came up behind American Archie Williams and Godfrey Brown of the United Kingdom.

He returned to UCLA in the fall of the same year to pursue in chemistry and physics.He observed that graduate students were not interacting much with people outside their department,and that there needed to be an organization to bring them together.He took up the issue directly with Vern Knudsen,dean of the Graduate Council of the UC Academic Senate.Vern supported the establishment of the Associated Graduate Students,independent of the already-existing Associated Students UCLA (ASUCLA),which served undergraduates,it was later renamed the Graduate Students Association,and absorbed as a branch of ASUCLA, acting as the official students government for graduates,James was also selected the ASG's first president.

In 1937, he was awarded his Master of Arts.He then went on to earn his Ph.D.in chemistry and mathematics in 1940 from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling.

He taught from 1940-1941 at Fisk University.From 1941-1942,he began working at Eastman Kodak Laboratories,becoming the first African American to work there.From 1942-1943,he helped with the war effort by working for the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD).He returned to Kodak as Senior Chemist,which he served as until 1953.

From 1953-1959,he was Project Director at Technical Operations ,Inc.Then he became Director of Basic Research at Fairchild Camera and instrument Corporation.He later worked at SMC Corporation and Smith Corona Marchant before setting down as Laboratory Administrator for the chemistry department at Stanford University in 1975.Troughout his career,his specialities were photochemistry,electron diffraction,magnetic resonance,solid state physics,and neurochemistry.His research on color photography resulted in three U.S. patents.

He died while on vacation in Te Anau,New Zeland.

"Lucien-Victor-Alexis" (July 8,1887-December 18,1981)

Not very much is known of his early childhood in New Orleans,but what is known are

the achiivements he would make in the later years to come.Born to Louis Victor & Alice Saaucier Alexis,he was educated in the local schools where he excelled academically. Lucien was determined to attend Harvard University.Not having the finances to do so,he began working in 1907 (at the age of twenty) as a railway mail clerk, saving for the education he so desperately desired.

By the time he reached twenty-seven he had set aside enough money for four years of college. He applied and was accepted at Harvard but was asked to attend (for one year) Philllips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire,a prestigious preparatory high school. While at Exeter,he lived in the home of Mr.H.F.Quimby and soon developed a keen interest in foreign languages and the sciences.By now he had had only enough money for three years upon entering Harvard,so he managed by graduating "cum laude" a year early (1917).It was there,at Harvard,that he earned the nickname: "The Negro Einstein."

That same year,Lucien entered Officers' Training School in Des Moines,Iowa and was commissioned  as a 1st lieutenant and assigned to the 367th Infantry on October 15, 1917. World War 1 was raging in Europe and Lucien sailed for service in France on June,1918.Two months before departing,Lucien married Rita Holt in Gulfport,Mississippi and together they would have one son, Lucien Victor Alexis Jr.

Upon returning to New Orleans,Lucien took up the profession of teaching. He was assigned to McCarthy Elementary in 1921 and appointed  Assistant Principal in 1923 at Willow Elementary.But his greatest reward came in 1926 when he became principal of Mcdonogh#35,the only public high school opened for the education of African American students in the city of New Orleans. For the next nearly 30 years,he would leave an indelible mark on the institution which is still being echoed by many of his formal students up to the present day.

"It was not unusual to spot our principal walking up and down the corridors of the Rampart Street Schol reading scientific works printed in German. Noted for his mastery of Latin,he often found time to instruct advanced classes in the subject." (Class of 1936).


Other graduates affectionately tell stories of his successful administration but also his dreadful "army." Being a former military man,Lucien was said to be strict but fair as well as famous for his method of disciplining students.Students who violated his dress code or discipline code were forced to join Alexis' "army" and ordered to march up and down the second floor of the school building.


Respect for Mr.Alexis soon extended beyond the school grounds and into the community.Since McDonogh#35 was located on South Rampart and Girod Streets,the students had to pass through a neighborhood of sleazy bars,houses of prostitution and various other vices.Often the girls were meddled by men on the way going and coming from school.Fortunately,once it was known that you were an "Alexis"girl,you were never meddled again.They respected Mr.Alexis and knew to show respect for his students.
Lucien did not give up his interest and love for science and once he became principal.For five he engaged in serious scientific study and soon published a 40 page brochure outlining his principles of a new theory which he termed his "ethonic" theory.


From 1929-1937,he published the following scientific articles: Fundamentals in Physics & in Chemistry,The Thermo-Electric Formula,The Riddle of the Magnetic Field,An Empirical Disclosure of the Fallacies of  Relativity, A Counter-Deduction from Bent Alpha Tracks,Radiations-Their Loci of Travel and Their  Loci of Orgin,The Co-Orgin of Gravity & Cosmic Rays,Simple Formula for Measuring Atoms,Their Speed,and the Speed of Light.

Lucien also spent a great deal of time on his favorite hobbies at home.On the 25th Anniversary of his graduation from Harvard,he told he told the Harvard press of the Hobbies:

"Don't interfere with my physics and chemistry,which I have raised from the ignoble position of a hobby into the dignified status of a science.Don't interfere with my Italian which I have picked up since leaving you fellows.Don't interfere with my German,My French,or my Spanish which I have kept plugging at.These are my near hobbies.You may interfere with my gardening and my frequent efforts at directing operettas,especially the Gilbert and Sullivan one,for there you are in the field of real hobbies of mine."

He is buried in the family's tomb in St.Louis Cemetery No 3.

"Angie-Lena-Turner-King"(1905-February 28,2004)

Born Elkhorn,West Virginia,in 1905 Angie was a chemist and mathematician who dedicated her life and career to teaching and mentoring students in the sciences.The eldest of William & Laura Turner,Angie had two siblings Sylvia & Irving.


Angie graduated in 1923 from Bluefield Colored Institute (a training high school that became Blluefield State College) in Bluefield,West Virginia.She then studied chemistry and mathematics and earned her BS degree (cum laude) in 1927 from West Virginia State College (WVSC),a Historically Black College and University (HCBU) located in Institute West Virginia.She taught mathematics at the Teacher-Training High School of WVSC,for eight years and eventually was offered a a teaching position on the WVSC college faculty.She taught and mentored many African Americans students WVSC including Jasper Brown Jeffries,a physicist and mathematician who would later work on the Manhattan Project in World War II.Jasper earned his BS in 1933 from WVSC.


Angie continued her education and in 1931 earned and MS degree in chemistry from Cornell University under the direction of Professor Thomas R.Briggs.The title of her thesis was "Interactions Betweeen Solutions of Tannic Acid Hydrous Ferric Oxide." Shen then returned to the faculty at WCSC.

During World War II,Angie taught soldiers in the Army Specialized Training Program at WVSC.In 1946 Angie married Robert Elemore King.They had five daughters.Angie continued her graduate studies in the field of  at the University of Pittsburgh under the direction of Dr.John A.Nietz.In 1955 she earned her doctoral degree.Angie spent her entire college teaching career at West Virginia State University and retired from the institution in 1980.

Dr.King continued to live in her on-campus house at WVSC.She died in Institute,West Virginia.

"Jasper-Brown-Jeffries"(August 15,1912-July 16,1994)

Born in Winston-Salem,North Carolina.He was an African American physicist and mathematician who worked on the Manhattan Project in World War II.The eldest child of  Brown & Edna Jeffries,Jasper had three younger brothers,Carl,Hubert,and Robert.


Jasper earned his B.S. degree in 1933 from West Virginia State College (WVSC), a historically Black College & University (HBCU) located in institute,West Virginia.While attending West Virginia State College,Japer enrolled in classes taught by Dr.Angie Turner King,also a 1927 graduate of the institution.Dr.Angie earned a masters degree in mathematics and chemistry in 1955 from the Cornell University and later earned a doctoral degree in mathematics and chemistry in 1955 from the University of Pittsburgh.This very significant because Angie represented the small numbers of African American women earning graduate degrees in the STEM (Science,Technology,engineering,mathematics) fields during this time period.Its highly plausible that Angie encouraged Jasper to futher his education and pursue a graduate degree.After earning his B.S. degree from West Virginia State College,Jasper briefly attended the University of  Illinois (1933-35).He later earned his M.S. degree in physical sciences from the University of Chicago in 1940.


After completing his M.S. degree,Jasper worked as a physicist on the Manhattan Project (Metallurgical Laboratory) between 1943& 1946 at the University of Chicago.Other African American scientists hired at the Chicago laboratory include Harold Delaney,Moddie Taylor,and Benjamin F.Scott.The Manhattan Project,one of the most important scientific projects of the 20th century,led to the development of the atomic bomb which ended World War II.


Jasper held several academic and industrial positions after his appointment on the Manhattan Project.From 1946-1949,he served as a Professor and Chair in the Department of Physics at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University in Greensboro,North Carolina,joining his colleague Harold Delaney who was faculty member in the Department of Chmistry at this time.For almost a decade,Jasper worked as a Senior Engineer for the Control Instrument Company (1951-59) located in New York.From 1963-1971,Jasper worked as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Westchester Community in Valhalla,New York in 1971,Jasper worked was promoted to Professor and became Chair of the Department.


In 1937,Japer married Marguerite Diffay,a native of Birmingham,Alabama.Marguerite earned a degree from Fisk University and a master of social work (M.S.W.)  from the University of Chicago.The Jeffries had three daughters,Edna,Hazel,Marguerite,and a son,Jasper Brown III.


Jasper died in White Plains,New York.