Ten African American Pioneers and Mathematicians Who Inspired Me
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Ten African American Pioneers and Mathematicians Who Inspired Me by Johnny L. Houston This article presents snapshots ically attended a one- of the lives of ten African Ameri- room Quaker school- can pioneers and mathematicians house, Banneker was who have inspired me in research, largely self-educated teaching, and life. The first five were amazing pioneers, and did much of his and the second five were extraordinary researchers. At the learning through the end of the article are the names of five great African Amer- voracious reading of ican mathematics teachers. In college I first learned of two borrowed books. He of the teachers. In graduate school I learned of a few oth- ers. As my career developed, I learned of all of these per- created puzzles for sons and many more. They inspired me to be the best that trigonometry that I could be in the mathematical sciences community and demonstrated his on the world scene. As knowledge of loga- a child I lived in abject rithms. Banneker also poverty in governmen- attempted to find the inspired me tal project housing in exact lengths of an a one-parent family (a equilateral triangle in research, mother with no high Benjamin Banneker: astronomer, inscribed within a mathematician, inventor, school education). I circle where the di- teaching, and life was the only one of surveyor, publisher of almanacs, ameter of the circle her four children to and author; one of the first is known. While still finish college. I earned recognized multi-talented three degrees in mathematics: A BA from Morehouse Col- a young man, he built African American intellectuals lege, a MS from Clark Atlanta University, and a PhD from a wooden clock that in the United States, often Purdue University. When I entered college I had never kept precise time considered the first African traveled outside the state of Georgia. By age 60, I had been until his death. As American mathematician. to all 50 states and 60 countries on six continents and early as 1788, Ban- had produced over twenty publications. I want to share neker began to make astronomical calculations, and he with young mathematicians the inspiration from earlier accurately predicted a solar eclipse that occurred in 1789. workers that enriched my life. In 1791, Banneker helped survey the land that would become Washington, DC. Although a fire at his house BENJAMIN BANNEKER (1731–1806) Self-educated on the day of Banneker’s funeral destroyed many of his Benjamin Banneker was born a free Black man and was papers and belongings, one of his journals and several of raised on a farm near Baltimore, MD. Although he period- his artifacts were saved and are presently available for Johnny L. Houston is Executive Secretary Emeritus (1975–2000) of public viewing. Many parks, schools, streets, and other the National Association of Mathematicians. His email address is entities have been named in his honor after his death. In [email protected]. recent years, a US postage stamp was printed in his honor. For permission to reprint this article, please contact: Currently the Benjamin Banneker Association, of which I [email protected]. was a member, promotes mathematical development at DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1639 the high school level. FEBRUARY 2018 NOTICES OF THE AMS 139 BLACK HISTORY MONTH EDWARD ELBERT FRANK ALEXANDER COX (1895–1969) BOUCHET (1852– Indiana U. BS 1918) Yale U. BS 1917, Cornell U. 1874, PhD 1876 PhD 1925 Edward Alexander Elbert Frank Cox in Bouchet was an Amer- 1925 became the first ican physicist and ed- African American to ucator. He received earn a PhD in mathe- a PhD from Yale in matics in the United 1876, the first by an States, as well as the African American first known Black from any American person to earn a PhD university. Bouchet in mathematics in the was unable to find a world. Cox’s disserta- university teaching tion advisor, William position after receiv- Lloyd Garrison, urged ing his PhD because his student to send of his race. He moved his dissertation to a to Philadelphia in university in another Edward Alexander Bouchet: The Elbert Frank Cox: The first 1876 and took a posi- country so that Cox’s first African American to earn a Black person to receive a PhD in tion at Philadelphia’s status would not be PhD degree from an American mathematics. Institute for Colored university. disputed. Universi- Youth (now Cheyney ties in England and University of Pennsylvania), where he taught science and Germany refused to accept Cox’s dissertation (probably mathematics for the next twenty-six years. He resigned because of race), but Japan’s Imperial University of San Dei in 1902, spending the next fourteen years in a variety accepted it. Cox inspired many future Black mathemati- of jobs. In 1916, illness forced him to move back to his cians and served a 40-year-long teaching career at Howard childhood home (New Haven, Connecticut), where he died University and West Virginia State College. The National in 1918. Currently, the American Physical Society confers Association of Mathematicians Cox-Talbot Address is de- the Edward A. Bouchet Award on some of the nation’s livered annually at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in his outstanding physicists. Yale University and Howard Uni- honor, and the Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund at Howard versity founded the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor University is used to help Black students achieve higher Society in his name. Yale also gives a Bouchet Leadership educational goals. Award to help advance diversity in higher education. In WALTER 1988 the Edward Bouchet Abdus Salam Institute (EBASI) RICHARD TALBOT was created by Abdus Salam, a Nobel Laureate, in Trieste, (1907–1977) U. Italy. One objective of EBASI is to provide for synergistic of Pittsburgh BS scientific and technical collaborations between African 1931, MA 1933, and American physical scientists. I presented at two EBASI PhD 1934 conferences in Africa. Walter Richard Tal- bot accepted an as- sistant professorship in mathematics in 1934 at Lincoln Uni- versity in Missouri, moving through the ranks to full profes- sor while also serving as department chair Walter Richard Talbot: fourth (1940–1963), dean African American to receive of men (1939–1944), a PhD in math, a founder of registrar (1946–48), the National Association of and acting dean of Mathematicians. instruction (1955– 1957). In 1963 Talbot accepted the positions of professor and department chair of mathematics at Morgan State University, remaining there until he retired in 1977. Talbot 140 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 65, NUMBER 2 BLACK HISTORY MONTH served the MAA in several significant capacities, and he table mathematics was a major driving force among the seventeen who came journals. He joined together in January 1969 to found the National Association the Howard Univer- of Mathematicians (NAM). More than any other single indi- sity faculty in 1920 vidual, it was Talbot’s leadership, guidance, organizational and retired in 1947. skills, and networking skills that raised funds for the es- Including positions tablishment of NAM. In 1978, at a luncheon “In Memorial,” at Tuskegee and Wil- Morgan State University named a scholarship in his honor. berforce, Woodard In 1980, NAM honored Talbot with the inauguration of the taught college-level annual Cox-Talbot Address. mathematics for 40 years. In addition to EUPHEMIA L. serving as dean of 2 HAYNES (1890– the College of Arts 1980) Smith C. BA and Science from 1914, U. Chicago 1920 to 1929, Wood- MA 1930, Catholic ard established a MS U. PhD 1943 graduate program in Martha Euphemia mathematics in 1929 Loften Haynes was and enhanced it by the first Black Amer- Dudley Weldon Woodard: The establishing a math- ican woman to earn second African American to ematics library and a PhD in mathemat- earn a PhD in mathematics, sponsoring seminars. ics. Haynes spent all established the mathematics Woodard advanced of her professional MS degree program at Howard the mathematics fac- life in Washington, University in 1929. ulty steadily over a DC. She was the first quarter century, in- woman to chair the cluding recruiting Elbert Cox. Woodard devoted his en- DC School Board. tire professional life to the promotion of excellence in Haynes also served mathematics through the advancement of his students, as math chair at in teaching, and in research. Woodard’s students who Dunbar High School also earned the PhD degree in mathematics included W. Euphemia L. Haynes: The first and at DC’s Teach- W. S. Claytor, George Butcher, Majorie Lee Brown, and African American woman to earn ers College. At Miner Eleanor Jones. NAM honored Woodard with the naming a PhD in mathematics. Teachers College she of the Claytor-Woodard Lecture, given annually at NAM’s established the math national meeting at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. department, and at Howard University she taught part-time as an adjunct WILLIAM W. professor. She was a prominent figure in bringing about CLAYTOR (1908– integration in the DC public school system and in the 1967) Howard U. Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women. Haynes received BS 1929, MS 1930, many awards, including election as Fellow in the American U. Penn. PhD 1933 Association for the Advancement of Science in 1962. NAM William Waldron honored her and two other Black women mathematicians Schieffelin Claytor by establishing the Haynes–Granville–Brown Colloquium was Dudley Wood- Lecture Series that is given annually at NAM’s national ard’s most promising meeting at the JMM. Her highest awards resulted from student at Howard. her humanitarianism and generosity. Upon her death, Thus it was not sur- US$700,000 was bequeathed to Catholic University in a prising that William trust for a chair and student loan fund in her name.