Why aren't there as many black scientists?

 This is Lee Lorch. He’s the guy who taught me first year calculus

He got his PhD in mathematics at the University of Cincinnati in 1941. After serving in the U.S. Army, he got a job at City College of New York.

He was fired for his work in the civil rights movement. He joined that when he learned that blacks weren’t allowed in his housing development.

Undeterred, he found a job at Fisk College, a historically black college in Tennessee. The year after he started, he went to a mathematics conference in Nashville, where he found that black mathematicians weren’t allowed to attend because the facility was “whites only”.

A few years later, he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee where he refused to answer questions about his political activity prior to 1941. Fisk fired him.

He moved to another all black college, Philander Smith in Little Rock, Arkansas. He had to resign after getting involved shielding black high school students who were trying to attend the all-white high school.

Then he smartened up and moved to Canada where he worked at the University of Alberta for nine uneventful years before moving to York University in 1968, where he remained until his death in 2014.

On the way, he trained 3 of the first 20 black women every to get a Ph.D. in mathematics in the United States, and the first three black men to get doctorates in mathematics in the United States. Before that, there weren’t any black Ph.D’s.

Now, if you think things were tough for him just because he helped black people, imagine what things would be for someone who actually was a black person.

Lorch with Etta Falconer, the fifth black woman to get a Ph.D. in mathematics. Lorch was her supervisor.


-Steven Haddock


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

130 Humans Deliberately Drowned

Image
  The Zong Massacre in the 1800s was deeply troubling. A slave ship was bound for Jamaica and threw 130 chained up slaves overboard, all drowning so that the captain could make a claim on insurance (slaves had insurance policies in case of “damage”.) They tried to use the excuse that they were short on water and had to dispose of the “cargo”— but their insurance claim was denied. Witnesses spread the word of the event and there was outrage from antislavers. They were never convicted for any of their crimes. But the word of the event spread throughout jamaica and helped create more antislavery sentiment throughout the island. They now have a monument to the people that lost their life in Zanzibar: The idea of just dumping human beings in the middle of the ocean with such disregard. How did we manage to stray so far? There are more stories like this about middle passage slave ships, equally and more horrifying. JMW Turner also did a painting about the event. Look closely. I honestly ...
Read more

The Fawn Response

  The fawn response is what is commonly known as people pleasing behavior: What I’m focused on is approval and validation or mollifying someone who might be unhappy with me. Instead of asking myself “what do I really think, feel, need?” I ask myself “what does this person want to hear? What would please them?” I disregard what I need to make room for what everyone else needs, not because I am generous but because I am trying to survive. After years of this I lose touch with myself. I don’t know what I need. I cannot make decisions without advice - others make decisions for me, which, one decision at a time implies relinquishing the direction of my life. I step into the role other people have anointed me with. “The responsible one.” “The helpful one.” “The resourceful one.” I avoid confrontation or conflict by circumventing, avoiding or agreeing. I have no boundaries (I never say “no” or “that’s not what I want to do” or “I have a different opinion.”) I am very concerned with what o...
Read more