Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
David Harold Blackwell (April 24, 1919 – July 8, 2010) was Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is one of the eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. Born in Centralia, Illinois, he was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the first black tenured faculty member at UC Berkeley.
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David Blackwell is, to mathematicians, the most famous, perhaps greatest, African Amercan Mathematician. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1938, Master of Arts in Mathematics in 1939, and his Ph.D. in 1941 (at the age of 22), all from the University of Illinois. He is the seventh African American to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He is the first and only African American to be any one of: a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a President of the American Statistical Society, and a Vice President of the America Mathematics Society.
David Harold Blackwell grew up in Centralia, Illinois, a town of 12,000 on the "Mason-Dixson Line." He was raised in a family which expected and supported working hard and a little faster than most folk. Blackwell says he was fortunate to attend a mixed school rather than the all black school. While he was growing up, "Southern Illinois was probably fairly racist. But I was not even aware of these problems -- I had no sense of being discriminated against." As a schoolboy, Blackwell did not care for algebra and trigonometry ("I could do it and I could see that it was useful, but it wasn't really exciting.") Geometry turned him on. "The most interesting thing I remember from calculus was Newton's method for solving equations. That was the only thing in calculus I really liked. The rest of it looked like stuff that was useful for engineers in finding moments of inertia and volumes and such." In his junior year he took an elementary analysis course and really fell in love with mathematics. "That's the first time I knew that serious mathematics was for me. It became clear that it was not simply a few things that I liked. The whole subject was just beautiful." Four years later he had a Ph.D.
Dr. Blackwell was appointed a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1941 for a year. At that time, members of the Institute were automatically officially made visting fellows of Princeton University, and thus Blackwell was listed in its bulletin as such. This caused considerable ruckus as there had never been a black student, much less faculty fellow, at the University [most notably it had rejected Paul Robeson soley on race]. The president of Princeton wrote the director of the Institute that the Institute was abusing the University's hospitality by admitting a black.
At the Institute he met the great von Neumann who asked Blackwell about his thesis. Blackwell, "He [von Neumann] listened for ten minutes and he started telling me about my thesis." Colleagues in Princeton wished to extend Blackwell's appointment at the institute. However, the president of Princeton organized a great protestation.
When it was time to leave the institute, Blackwell knew no white schools would hire him, and he applied to all 105 Black schools in the country. After instructorships at Southern University and Clark College, Dr. Blackwell joined the faculty of Howard University from 1944 as an instructor.. At the time, Howard University "was the ambition of every black scholar." In three years, Blackwell had risen to the rank of Full Professor and Chairman.....Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Wednesdayâs a big day, both for comic-book nerds and for media-justice geeks. Colorlines: Marvel Overcomes Its Fear of a Black Spider-Man. Will White Fans Follow?
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Marvel Comicsâ âUltimate Fallout #4â hits the stands today, and in it, we get our first glimpse at the âUltimateâ storylineâs new Spidey, a half-African American half-Latino kid named Miles Morales. The Spider-Man alter-ego belonged solely to fictional working-class white dude Peter Parker (and to the white actors whoâve portrayed him) for five solid decades. So this is a big move for Marvelâand, of course, one thatâs already being met with a racist backlash.
Peter Parkerâs not really gone, of course; Morales is taking on the Spider-mantle only in the offshoot in which Parker got killed back in June, so storylines featuring each Spidey will sit side-by-side on shelves. Thatâs not to say this editorial decision shouldnât be applauded. Every time the comics industry has attempted to fix its politics, itâs gotten pushback, whether itâs casually racist anger at an Angolan Muslim as the Batman of Paris, or real-deal white supremacists protesting Idris Elbaâs role in the Thor movie.
In many ways, Marvelâs been the most admirably progressive of the major comics imprints, and spokespeople like Tom Brevoort have spoken eloquently and publicly about the impact that a superhero of color can have on a young readerâs self-image. But Marvel, like the rest of the comics industry, often finds itself trapped under the weight of its own legacy; its first-stringers and main moneymakers were created decades ago, in a less enlightened time. Imagine trying to write a story based on 2011 headlines with a social-justice bentâexcept it has to star your white racist great-grandfather as the good guy, and your entire family is watching over your shoulder, waiting for you to write something they find unrealistic. (If you donât have a white racist great-grandfather⦠you probably donât need this metaphor anyway.)
So howâs Marvelâs constituency handling Moralesâ debut? Some, like Adam Serwer, love it and point out that Spideyâs essential nature has always been working-class urbanness, not whiteness. On the other hand, at the politics-and-comics blog Graphic Policy, Brett Schenker introduces us to New England retailer Larryâs Comics, who decided to mark the new Spidey with racist jokes about fried chicken and big lips.
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Affluent blacks and Hispanics live in neighborhoods that are noticeably poorer than neighborhoods where low-income whites live, according to a new study that suggests income alone does not explain persistent segregation patterns in housing. Washington Post: Study: Income does not explain segregation patterns in housing
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Washington and Atlanta were the only two major metropolitan regions in the country that followed a slightly different pattern. In these two cities, the study found that the situation for high-income blacks and Hispanics was equal, but not worse, than that of low-income whites.
Prince Georgeâs County near Washington and DeKalb County outside Atlanta are home to many African Americans with college degrees and good incomes, pushing up the average for their regions.
As a result, blacks and Hispanics in both cities who earned more than $75,000 lived in neighborhoods that were virtually the same as neighborhoods populated by whites earning under $40,000, as measured by average income, poverty rates, education levels, home values and housing vacancies.
âIncome, and being successful in class terms, does not necessarily put you in a different kind of neighborhood,â said John Logan, a Brown University sociologist who analyzed census data in his study released Tuesday.
His is the third study in the past week to document how minorities have fallen behind whites in both income and wealth.
The Pew Research Center reported that the wealth gap between whites and minorities is at a historic high, largely because of the slide in housing prices.
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Plans for Howard University's proposed mixed-use development project, Howard Town Center, have been dragging on for years. The university is making the tough call to hold out for the ideal project rather than build what it can in this investment climate. Greater Greater Washington: Howard faces dilemma with mixed-use development
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Troy Stovall, Howard University's chief operating officer, revealed Thursday that the difficulty in financing the project is not due to the retail and supermarket component, but due to the number of apartments slated for the site.
Rather than letting the developer proceed with building the garage, supermarket, retail shops and half the number of apartments originally planned, Howard wants the full project, including all of the apartments built into project at the same time.
When asked on the status of the retail component, Mr. Stovall said that the developer has received several letters of intent from supermarkets interested in the space. The problem, though, lies upstairs. The banks, Mr. Stovall stated, are less convinced about the financial viability of building so many apartments on lower Georgia Avenue.
U street developer JBG, however, has recently purchased several properties within a few blocks of the Howard Town Center site. JBG and Howard's banks clearly differ in confidence in the area's potential.
Is Howard letting the perfect become the enemy of the good? Neighbors appear to strongly support the arrival of a supermarket, especially since the closest one, a mile away, offers a paltry selection.
However, to abide by the banks' requirements to reduce the number of units reduces the viability of the area's retail revitalization. More residents, after all, means more potential customers, and thus more chances for success along Georgia Avenue.
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They’re calling her a “Chess Cinderella.” Colorlines: San Francisco Bayview’s Chess Star Wins Big Love With Jada Pinkett Smith
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Dyhemia Young is a 16-year-old chess star who won a coveted wild card seat in the prestigious all-girls annual Susan Polgar Girls’ Invitational chess tournament in Lubbock, Texas. But there were a couple obstacles standing in her way. For one, airfare from Young’s home town of San Francisco to Texas was steep, and then Young’s mentor Adisa Banjoko had trouble locating her when he heard the news about her invitation.
Banjoko mentored Young in chess through the Hip-Hop Chess Federation, a non-profit that uses music, chess and martial arts to help young people in rough neighborhoods navigate their tricky lives.
It turned out that Young had been bouncing around the foster care system for the last three years, and it was only after finding a missing person’s poster and scouring leads that led them to the San Francisco police that Banjoko was able to get ahold of Young.
Young said that chess, which she only started playing in ninth grade, was one thing that helped her focus on her studies despite the rest of her struggles.
“I had to focus on my studies,” Young told the Los Angeles Times. “I messed up in school in ninth-grade year. I had a lot going on in my home situation. But every time Adisa cracked open a board at the library, I wanted to play.”
“Chess kept me going. It kept me motivated and kept me trying.”
Still, with further unexpected travel costs, getting Young to the tournament would be tough. With just days away before the tournament, Young and Banjoko were still raising money for the trip. But in the last moment Jada Pinkett Smith, who happened to see a writeup of Young’s story in the Los Angeles Times, stepped in to help Young get to Texas. Young didn’t advance very far in the tournament, but last Friday she won a $40,000 scholarship to Texas Tech, which hosted the chess tournament.
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