Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
Jesse Ernest Wilkins, Jr. (November 27, 1923 – May 1, 2011) was an African American nuclear scientist, mechanical engineer and mathematician, who gained first fame on entering the University of Chicago at age 13, becoming its youngest ever student. His intelligence led to him being referred to as a "negro genius" in the media.
As part of a widely varied and notable career, Wilkins contributed to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. He also gained fame working in and conducting nuclear physics research in both academia and industry. He wrote numerous scientific papers, served in various important posts, earned several significant awards and helped recruit minority students into the sciences. His career spanned seven decades and included significant contributions to pure and applied mathematics, civil and nuclear engineering, and optics.
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Despite his stature and fame during his various careers he was not unaffected by the prevalent racism that existed for much of his life.
In 1940 Wilkins completed his B.Sc. in mathematics at age 17, then his M.Sc. at age 18, and finally went on to complete a Ph.D in mathematics at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1942 at age 19. In order to improve his rapport with the nuclear engineers reporting to him, Wilkins later received both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering from New York University in 1957 and 1960, thus earning five science degrees during his life.
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In 1944 he returned to the University of Chicago where he served first as an associate mathematical physicist and then as a physicist in its Metallurgical Laboratory, as part of the Manhattan Project. Working under the direction of Arthur Holly Compton and Enrico Fermi, Wilkins researched the extraction of fissionable nuclear materials, but was not told of the research group's ultimate goal until after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Wilkins was the codiscoverer or discoverer of a number of phenomena in physics such as the Wilkins Effect, plus the Wigner-Wilkins and Wilkins Spectra.
When Wilkins's team was about to be transferred to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (known at the time as site "X"), due to the Jim Crow laws of the Southern United States, Wilkins would have been prevented from working there. When Edward Teller was informed about this, he wrote a letter on September 18, 1944 to Harold Urey (who was the director of war research at Columbia at the time) of Wilkins's abilities, informing him about the problem of Wilkins's race, and recommending his services for a new position......Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The particular challenges facing black workers cannot be solved by monetary policy and in fact are an illustration of its limits. New York Times: Black Jobless Rates Remain High, but Fed Can’t Do Much to Help.
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The time-honored pattern of American economic cycles is that recessions are worse for black workers, and recoveries are worse for black workers, too.
As this recovery gains momentum, and the labor market starts to look more normal, a new report offers a reminder that black workers once again are lagging behind.
The unemployment rate for black workers rose faster during the Great Recession and, over the last five years, it has receded more slowly.
The rate for black workers remains 1.3 percentage points higher than on the eve of the recession in December 2007, while for white workers it is 0.5 points higher.
Black workers have also suffered twice as large a reduction in median hourly wages: down 3.6 percent for black workers; 1.7 percent for white workers.
The report, by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group, and the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, is part of a broader campaign to persuade the Federal Reserve to persist in its economic stimulus campaign.
“The Federal Reserve needs to craft monetary policy that tightens the labor market sufficiently so that all Americans, and African-Americans in particular, have an opportunity to benefit from the shared prosperity that a full-employment economy provides,” the two groups argue in the report, which presents unemployment and wage data for each of the Fed’s 12 regions to put a local face on the problem.
Unemployment among black workers is perpetually higher than unemployment among white workers. The magnitude of the differences varies widely among the states, but the lowest level of black unemployment in any state last year, the 8 percent rate in Virginia, was still higher than the highest rate of white unemployment in any state, the 7 percent rate in Nevada. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports black unemployment rates for only 28 of the states.)
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This new ABC drama is the most nuanced, intelligent take on race relations we’ve seen in years. Slate: American Crime.
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American Crime eschews the propulsive, entertaining genre beats of a mystery show: None of its main characters are detectives, lawyers, or crime-solvers of any kind. The title, American Crime, does not refer to any one act but a host of them, including Matt’s death; the lesser crimes surrounding it; the crimes in prosecuting it; and, hovering above it all, the crimes of prejudice and racism and their distinctly American flavors.
It’s a reflection of the show’s philosophy that the seemingly happily married white couple whose murder and assault kicks off the series remains largely mysterious and unknown: Matt and Gwen would be on the front page of the paper, but they are of the least interest to American Crime’s writers. Instead Matt’s death acts as a kind of dragnet, grabbing up a number of disparate characters that the show follows even as the immediate ramifications of the murder fade from their lives.
Those characters include Russ’ rigid, racist ex-wife, Barb (Felicity Huffman); Gwen’s parents, Tom (W. Earl Brown) and Eve (Penelope Ann Miller); widowed Mexican American garage owner Alonzo (Benito Martinez, who abruptly left House of Cards this season, probably for this role), his teenage son, Tony (Johnny Ortiz), and daughter, Jenny (Gleendilys Inoa); two lovebird meth-heads, the white Aubrey (Caitlin Gerard) and the black Carter (Elvis Nolasco), whose sister Aliyah (Regina King) is a devoted convert to Islam; and Hector (Richard Cabral), a tattoo-covered gangbanger from Mexico.
All of these characters have something to say about race.
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One hundred years ago, the film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan and championed white supremacy was targeted by fledgling civil rights organizations and black media. The Root: How Black America Rallied to Stop the Racist Film The Birth of a Nation.
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One hundred years ago—on March 3, 1915, to be exact—as war consumed Europe, and the United States tried to steer clear of entanglements, some of the best minds and most passionate social-justice advocates had one goal: to stop the opening of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation at the Liberty Theater in New York City’s Times Square.
Charlotta Bass, editor of the West Coast’s oldest black newspaper, the California Eagle, had sounded the alarm some days before in a telegram to NAACP headquarters, warning about a hideous film that was wowing white filmgoers in Los Angeles despite efforts to have it banned. Leaders of the six-year-old New York-based organization, led mainly by white philanthropists, sprang into action. Through lobbying, letter writing and litigation, they spearheaded a campaign that for most of the rest of the year saw them and their allies in the black press trying to outrun the publicity juggernaut that turned The Birth of a Nation into the talk of the nation.
Bass and her husband, Joe, had been onto the story for about a decade, since Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman had become a play that eventually became the movie The Birth of a Nation. As editor of the short-lived Montana Plaindealer, Joe Bass had urged readers to ignore the “infamous and hell-inspiring play” and its “unprincipled author.” He predicted that the play would cause “strife, prejudice and race hatred.”
That it did, as James Weldon Johnson—the author-educator-diplomat-activist, and contributing editor of the New York Age—explained in a March 1915 editorial: “The Clansman did us much injury as a book, but most of its readers were those already prejudiced against us. It did us more injury as a play, but a great deal of what it attempted to tell could not be represented on the stage. Made into a moving picture play it could do us incalculable harm.”
The film venerated the Ku Klux Klan in a post-Civil War Armageddon in which beastly black men, with the support of white Northern conquerors, preyed upon Southern white women, and where ignorant black men elected to office made a mockery of governance. Its obvious message, taken from a history written by Woodrow Wilson—a professor before he became president—was that only the KKK saved civilization from these savages.
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Caribbean Community leaders spent two days in the Bahamas meeting to discuss a number of issues from security to the economy to the legalization of pot. Miami Herald: Caribbean leaders form marijuana commission.
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Just days after Jamaica became the first Caribbean nation to decriminalize small portions of pot, leaders of the Caribbean Community agreed on the composition of a commission to examine marijuana legalization throughout their 15-member regional bloc.
Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie, currently chairman of the group, said members expect the commission to “soon begin its work to look into the economic, health and legal issues surrounding the use of marijuana and to consult with stakeholders to get a view on the issue.”
The marijuana legalization debate has been on the Caribbean’s agenda for more than a year. On Tuesday, Jamaica’s Parliament agreed to decriminalize small amounts of weed and establish a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medicinal marijuana industry. Also residents can carry up to two ounces of marijuana without it being on their criminal record, and grow up to five plants where permitted.
Marijuana legalization was, however, among several issues discussed during the gathering, which kicked off Thursday in Nassau. Other issues topping the packed agenda included: regional security, the economy and rising tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Haiti is a member of the bloc, known as Caricom, while the Dominican Republic has applied to join.
Caribbean leaders have been vocal critics of a 2013 ruling by the Dominican Constitutional Court revoking citizenship of anyone born to immigrants without proper documentation dating back to 1929.
From (L to R) Outgoing Caricom chair and Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne; incoming Chair Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie and Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart speak to the media in Nassau, Bahamas, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 at the end of a two-day summit. COURTESY OF CARICOM
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Good news. Slate: Liberia Down to Zero Active Ebola Cases.
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With the release of a 58-year-old teacher named Beatrice Yardolo from a treatment center, Liberia now has no known cases of Ebola, the Associated Press reports. If no further cases are reported in the next 42 days, the country will be declared "Ebola-free" per World Health Organization guidelines; unfortunately, neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone are still suffering from heavy infection rates.
The WHO on Wednesday reported 132 new Ebola cases last week, an increase from the 99 cases reported the previous week. The agency said the spread of Ebola remains "widespread" in Sierra Leone and noted that cases have jumped both there and in Guinea.
Nine new cases were reported in a 24-hour period, according to an update from the Sierra Leone government on Tuesday.
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Pull up a chair and sit down a while and enjoy the company.