Born April 24, 1919 in Centralia, Illinois a Famous mathematician was born. As African American with a middle-class family David Harold Blackwell grew up in Centralia, Illinois. He was raised in a family which expected and supported a little more than hard work. Being that his parents were very hard workers and fought their right to be equals, Blackwell was one of the fortunate to attend an integrated school rather than the all black school. And what most people don’t know he battled race issues. Mr. Blackwell stated in an interview “I had no sense of being discriminated against." Blackwell attended that school and finished in six years rather than the normal eight. He learned to read in his uncle’s grocery store, reading seed packages. David was in high school when he found his special interest. …show more content…
He stated in an interview He had always been good at math and somewhat interested in it, but geometry really excited him. He credited his first two geometry teachers for influencing him. “Mr. Huck encouraged some of us to try to solve problems in a mathematics magazine. I solved some of them and he mailed my solutions in and a few times my name appeared in the magazine.” While in school Blackwell did not care for algebra and trigonometry. He stated to biographies the most interesting thing he remembered 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 of college, he took an elementary analysis course and really fell in love with mathematics. It became clear that it was not simply a few things that interested him but that the whole subject was just beautiful. Four years after he was granted an
Carter was a very busy man dedicated to the education and the advancement of people of color. From 1903-1909, Carter traveled the world. He supervised schools in the Philippines, studied in Asia, Europe, and even at the University of Paris. In 1909, Carter returned to the United States, where he taught History, English, Spanish and French at Dunbar High School in Washington D.C. Carter was the second African American to receive a Ph.D from Harvard in 1912.
The formation of the Africana Studies Project includes Knowledge, Power, and Humanity. This insurrectionary intellectual formation examines the worlds of meaning, thought, and expression of Africans, reconstructing new meanings and possibilities for humanity. Development of African American Studies has increased awareness of the contribution of African Americans to the civilizations of the world, using its many themes and concepts, while also displaying many issues. One main issue of this, is the lack of Africana knowledge. For African American discipline to advance, its focal point must be the production and utilization of knowledge, to develop solutions to various issues in our society.
Scott w. Williams is a Famous African American Mathematician, He was born April 22, 1943 in Staten Island, New York city. He is a Professor of mathematics at the university at buffalo suny. He studied at two university Morgan State and Leigh University. Scott Williams is an only grandchild. His grandparents strongly valued education. His mother Beryl Williams was the first black to graduate from the university in Maine in the year of 1936. Scott w. Williams had a perfect SAT Math score but he failed to get a Scholarship to MIT. By the time Scott Williams received a B.S. In Mathematics from Morgan state college in 1964. He had solved 4 advanced problems in the mathematics monthly. Along with his interest in mathematics, Williams has also been
Ever since slavery has been established there has been negative and positive influences for white Americans. Some white Americans did not show any remorse for the African Americans and believed they deserved to be slaves. However, there were good white Americans like Horace Greeley that went to their grave to abolish slavery, and the brutality the Africans Americans faced. There was fairness for the African Americans because they were considered not human. People like D.L. Moody who was an evangelist that preached only his sermons to whites. Certain events like the yellow-fever epidemic of 1878 blamed the African Americans for the cause of it, yet some political leaders took it as an advantage to help stop slavery. These influences were not only bad influence, but positive as well.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician in America, struggled with sexual prejudice to earn her place in history. She was born in Bristol, England on February 3, 1821 to a liberal and wealthy family. She was the third daughter in a family of nine children. Her father, Samuel Blackwell, believed in the value of education and knowledge and hired a governess for the girls, even though many girls were not educated in those days. In 1832, the family sugar cane plantation went bankrupt, forcing the family to move to America.
The aspect of African-American Studies is key to the lives of African-Americans and those involved with the welfare of the race. African-American Studies is the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding (Karenga, 21). African-American Studies exposes students to the experiences of African-American people and others of African descent. It allows the promotion and sharing of the African-American culture. However, the concept of African-American Studies, like many other studies that focus on a specific group, gender, and/or creed, poses problems. Therefore, African-American Studies must overcome the obstacles in order to improve the state of being for African-Americans.
Next is John Henrik Clark, who refers to African America Studies as Africana Studies because he believes that Black tells you how you look, not who you are. He goes on to state that he calls African American Studies “a dilemma at the crossroads of history” (Clark 32). This is because European people knew history well enough to distort it and use it, as well as political weapons such as the gun and bible, to control the world. This is the reason why a look at African culture will show what Africana Studies are about or should be about. Africana Studies should embrace the Africans all around the world, in places like Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean Islands even those in Asia and the Pacific Islands. Clarke states that Africa is
Prior to the Civil War, African Americans were treated as second class individuals. They lacked the freedom and equality they sought for. To the African Americans, the Civil War was a war of liberation. Contrary to what African Americans perceived, Southerners viewed the war as an episode of their journey to salvation. Southern lands may have been destroyed and depleted, but the South was persistent that their racial order would not be disrupted. To most, the goals of the Reconstruction era were to fully restore the Union, and to some, grant emancipation and liberty to former slaves. Although the newly freedmen gained various rights and liberties, their naïve dreams of complete equality and liberation collapsed due to the immense resistance of the South.
Renowned African-American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar rose from a poor childhood in Dayton, Ohio to international acclaim as a writer and as an effective voice for equality and justice for African-Americans (Howard, Revell). He met and associated with other historical men such as Fredrick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and his Dayton neighbors Orville and Wilbur Wright (Harvard, Columbus). Dunbar's personal story, as well as his writings, are still an inspiration to all Americans (Poupard).
...ibutions to analytic geometry, algebra, and calculus. In particular, he discovered the binomial theorem, original methods for expansion of never-ending series, and his “direct and inverse method of fluxions.”
Ralph Waldo Ellison was born on March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City Oklahoma. Growing up Ellison loved to read and write due to the perhaps DNA inheritance of his father who liked to read so much he couldn’t wait to read his next saga. Ellison’s mother had a passion for bringing home books and magazines from houses she cleaned, at her one of many jobs she had to make end meet as single mother/widowed. Soon after his father died from a work related accident. Ellison was only three years old and his mother was forced to pick up extra jobs to take care of Ralph and his brother so they can make ends meet. In 1933 he left Oklahoma to study music at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He did not graduate, due to tuition fees being high. From there he moved to New York in 1936, where he was influenced by the Harlem Renaissance culture.
It is interesting that despite the fame he achieved because of his mechanical inventions, he believed that pure mathematics was the more worthwhile pursuit. Plutarch describes his attitude:
Every country has a way of operating. There are different social classes, and people get treated differently than others. However every nation has beneficial and damaging ways of their culture. Famous writers spoke out against the oppression, African Americans faced everyday Claude Mckay’s vision for African Americans was that they would have to shed blood to get their freedom. James Johnson’s vision for blacks in America was that they would have to surround themselves around each other. Langston Hughes idea was that whites would eventually see that blacks as people who love America too. Finally all 3 of these ideas were used decades later in the civil rights movement.
David Leavitt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 1961, the son of Harold Jack Leavitt and Gloria Rosenthal Leavitt. David was raised in Palo Alto, California after his family moved there. David also had 2 other siblings, a brother, John, and a sister, Emily. (David Leavitt Biography, 2015) The early years of his life were a bit nomadic. The family had to move frequently, following the course of his father’s career. His father, Harold, taught at Rensselear, then at the University of Chicago. It was in Chicago that his brother and sister were born. Afterwards the family then moved to Pittsburgh so his father could teach at Carnegie-Mellon. David was born here in 1961. When David was a toddler about 4 or 5 years old, his father Harold, then took a position at the Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. (Leavitt, n.d.) It was in Palo Alto where David spent most of his childhood.
Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland where he was destined to be a clergyman. Yet, it was obvious that Euler had a different calling in life. His aptitude for mathematics was evident even in his early life. His propensity for higher learning was so great that he studied with Johann Bernoulli, who was Jakob’s brother, as a young boy. His time with Johann urged his sense of mathematic discovery. Euler attended University of Basel where he earned his Master’s degree while he was still a teenager. While at the school he barely learned any mathematics because the school was basically a poor school. Due to his own mathematic curiosity and Johann’s private lessons, at the under-ripened age of 16, Euler became a college graduate with a Master’s degree. His curiosity in mathematics allowed Euler to study the works of other brilliant ...