Laughing Elephant Black Scientists Posters by Lynn Mitchell Group

NEW •EXCEPTIONAL BLACK SCIENTISTS POSTERS EXCEPTIONAL BLACK SCIENTISTS Many years ago we found 9 posters at a garage sale that we bought and added to the Darling Family Archive. There they sat in their drawer until recently, when we were excited to re-discover this series of posters entitled, Exceptional Black Scientists. Paintings were created by artist Richard Crichlow for the CIBA-Greigy Corporation, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, and short biographies added. We have found that these posters are very rare, and their beauty and interest determined us to re-issue them with updated biographical information. These Black men and women led inspiring lives and deserve to be celebrated for their accomplishments. 10% of our profits for these posters will be given to Southern Christian Leadership Confrence (SCLC) in support of their work. Jewel Plummer Cobb was born in Chicago to physician Frank and Carrabelle (Cole) Plummer, a schoolteacher. Her grandfather, a freed slave, became a pharmacist, initiating four generations of medical practitioners. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Talladega College in 1944. She earned a Master of Science from New York University in 1947, and was awarded a Ph.D. in cell physiology from New York University in 1950.

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Becoming a noted cell biologist was a difficult road for Cobb. She came from an upper-middle-class background, was in constant contact with African American professionals and was well aware of their accomplishments. But because she was African-American, she did face segregation during the course of her education, particularly as a child.

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Much of Cobb’s research was focused on the skin pigment melanin, and her most significant research was with testing new chemotherapeutic drugs in cancer cells. The impact of her research is still felt today. From 1960 to 1969, she was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, and from 1969 to 1976 she served as Dean and Professor of Zoology at Connecticut College. Dr. Cobb was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 1974.

She was President of California State University in Fullerton (1981–1990), and in 1991 she became the principal investigator at Southern California Science and Engineering ACCESS Center and Network, which assists middle school and high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds pursue a future in the fields of science and engineering. Cobb is the recipient of several honorary doctorates and many awards, including the Kilby Award for lifetime achievement in 1995. Shortly after retiring, Cobb was named California State University Trustee Professor for its Los Angeles division. In 2001, Cobb became the principal investigator for Science Technology Engineering Program (STEP) Up for Youth—ASCEND project at California State University, Los Angeles. She also was named and served as a member of the Caltech Board of Trustees. A supporter of equal access to educational and professional opportunity, Cobb wrote often about racial and sexual discrimination in the sciences, and raised funds to give more opportunities for minorities to enter the field.

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Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

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Dr. Jane Wright analyzed a wide range of anti-cancer agents and developed new techniques for administering cancer chemotherapy. By 1967, she was the highest ranking African-American woman in a United States medical institution. Jane was born in New York City to Corrine Cooke and Louis Tompkins Wright. Louis Wright was one of the first African American graduates of Harvard Medical School. Jane Wright graduated with honors from New York Medical College in 1945 and after a residency at Harlem Hospital in 1948, and marrying David Jones, Jr., a Harvard Law School graduate, she joined her father, director of the Cancer Research Foundation at Harlem Hospital, and the two began testing a new chemical on human leukemias and cancers of the lymphatic system. At Harlem Hospital her father had already re-directed the focus of foundation research to investigating anti-cancer chemicals and he worked in the lab and Jane Wright performed the patient trials. Following her father’s death in 1952, Jane Wright was appointed head of the Cancer Research Foundation, at the age of 33.

In 1955, Wright became an associate professor of surgical research at New York University and director of cancer chemotherapy research at New York University Medical Center and Bellevue and University hospitals. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Dr. Wright to the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke. Based on the Commission’s report, a national network of treatment centers was established for these diseases. In 1967, she was named professor of surgery, head of the Cancer Chemotherapy Department, and associate dean at New York Medical College, her alma mater. Wright specialized in exploring the relationship between patient and tissue culture response, and developed new techniques for administering cancer chemotherapy. Wright implemented at the New York Medical College a comprehensive program to study stroke, heart disease, and cancer, and to instruct doctors in chemotherapy.

David Harold Blackwell was an American statistician and mathematician who made significant contributions to game theory, probability theory, information theory, and Bayesian statistics and who broke racial barriers when he was named (1965) the first African American member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

of the statistics department there. He was additionally appointed professor of mathematics in 1973, and he retired in 1988. While working (1948–50) as a consultant at the RAND Corporation, Blackwell applied game theory to military situations by analyzing the optimum timing of theoretical armed duelists.

Blackwell, the son of a railroad worker, taught himself to read as a boy. He initially planned to become an elementary school teacher, and at age 16 he entered the University of Illinois, where his early aptitude for mathematics blossomed. He earned bachelor’s (1938), master’s (1939), and doctorate (1941) degrees, and, after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, he briefly worked for the U.S. Office of Price Administration.

Blackwell was known for his independent development of dynamic programming. His importance can be gauged by the theorems that bear his name, including the Blackwell Renewal Theorem, used in engineering, and the Rao-Blackwell Theorem in statistics. His many publications included the classic Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions (1954; with M.A. Girshick) and Basic Statistics (1969). By the time he retired, he had published over 90 books and papers on dynamic programming, game theory, and mathematical statistics.

In 1944 Blackwell received an appointment to the mathematics department at Howard University, Washington, D.C. He became head of the department in 1947. In 1954 Blackwell was invited to join the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became that institution’s first African American tenured professor. He also served as chairman (1957–61)

In 1971, Wright became the first woman president of the New York Cancer Society. During her forty-year career, Dr. Wright published papers on cancer chemotherapy and led delegations of cancer researchers to Africa, China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.

Blackwell was elected (1976) an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and won the John von Neumann Theory Prize in 1979.

Dr. LaSalle Doheny Leffall, Jr., a surgeon, oncologist, medical educator, civic leader and educator who, as the first Black president of the American Cancer Society, was a leader in promoting awareness of the risks of cancer, particularly among African-Americans. Leffall was born in Tallahassee, but grew up in Quincy, Florida. His parents, Lula Jourdan and LaSalle Leffall, Sr. were teachers. Leffall graduated from Dr. Wallace S. Stevens High School at age 15 years in 1945. Awarded his B.S. degree summa cum laude from Florida A & M College in 1948, Leffall at age twenty-two earned his M.D. from Howard University College of Medicine. There, Dr. Burke Syphax, Dr. Jack White, Dr. W. Montague Cobb and the celebrated Dr. Charles R. Drew taught him. Upon earning his M.D., Leffall continued his medical training at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis; and assistant residence in surgery at Freedman’s Hospital from 1953 to 1954; and at D.C. General Hospital from 1954 to 1955; chief resident in surgery at Freedman’s Hospital from 1956 to 1957 and senior fellow in cancer surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital from 1957 to 1959. Beginning his military service at the rank of Captain, M. C.,

he served as chief of general surgery at the U. S. Army Hospital in Munich, Germany. Leffall joined Howard’s faculty, in 1962, as an assistant professor and by 1970, he was chairman of the Department of Surgery, a position he held for twenty-five years. He was named the Charles R. Drew Professor in 1992, occupying the first endowed chair in the history of Howard’s Department of Surgery. He was the recipient of many awards. Leffall served as visiting professor at over 200 medical institutions in the U.S. and abroad and authored or coauthored over 130 articles and chapters. He was a diplomat of the American Board of Surgery and a fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Gastroenterology. He was devoted to the study of cancer, especially among African Americans, and as president of the American Cancer Society, developed programs for the benefit of the African American population and other ethnic groups. Leffall taught over 4,500 medical students and trained at least 250 general surgery residents. In 1995 he was elected president of the American College of Surgeons and in 2002 was named chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel.

Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

JANE C. WRIGHT

Born in Washington, D.C., Drew attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, where his track and football prowess earned him the Mossman trophy as the man who contributed the most to athletics. He entered McGill University School of Medicine in Montreal, became an Alpha Omega Alpha Scholar and won the J. Francis Williams Fellowship, given to the top five students in his graduating class. He received his MD degree in 1933 and served his first appointment as instructor in pathology at Howard University from 1935 to 1936. In 1938 Drew was awarded a two-year Rockefeller fellowship in surgery and began postgraduate work, earning his Doctor of Science in Surgery at Columbia University. His doctoral thesis, “Banked Blood,” was based on an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques and thus began his ultimate destiny in serving mankind. World War II wounds and injuries were becoming more severe, and the need for blood plasma intensified.

Drew, as the leading authority in the field, was selected medical director of the Blood for Britain project, and 14,500 pints of vital plasma were collected for the British wounded. Drew began what became known as bloodmobiles – trucks containing refrigerators of stored blood. He also created a central location blood collection where donors could give blood. He made sure all blood plasma was tested before it was shipped out. He ensured that only skilled personnel handled blood plasma to avoid the possibility of contamination. In 1941, Drew became director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank. That year Drew became the first African-American surgeon selected to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. The NAACP awarded him the Spingarn Medal in 1944 in recognition of his work on the British and American projects. Virginia State College presented him an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1945, as did his alma mater Amherst in 1947. Drew returned to Freedman’s Hospital and Howard University, where he served as a surgeon and professor of medicine from 1942 to 1950.

Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

DAVID BLACKWELL

Charles Drew was an African-American surgeon who pioneered methods of storing blood plasma. He directed plasma programs of the United States and Great Britain in World War II, but resigned after a ruling that the blood of African-Americans would be segregated.

LASALLE D. LEFFALL, JR

Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

CHARLES R. DREW

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, Dr. Lloyd N. Ferguson has engaged in a lifelong love affair with chemistry. A teacher for more than 35 years, his imaginative presentation of the subject inspired countless students. Lloyd Noel Ferguson was born in Oakland, California to Noel Ferguson, a businessman, and Gwendolyn Ferguson, a house maid. Ferguson’s interest in chemistry began when he was a child. He built a shed in his backyard so that he could conduct experiments away from his house. Ferguson graduated from Oakland Tech High School when he was just sixteen. After high school, Ferguson worked with the WPA and soon thereafter, the Southern Pacific Railway Company as a porter to save money to attend college. In 1936, Ferguson became the first in his family to attend college, and he earned his B.S. degree with honors in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley in 1940. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Berkeley in 1943, making him the first African American to do so. While at Berkeley, Ferguson worked with Dr. Melvin Calvin on a national defense project to find a material that would release oxygen for use in a submarine. In 1945, Ferguson joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C. He became

a full professor of chemistry there in 1955, and in 1958 became the head of the department. Ferguson was instrumental in building the first doctoral program in chemistry at a historically Black college or university. In 1952 he was elected to the prestigious American Chemical Society. In 1965, Ferguson joined the faculty of California State University, Los Angeles, where he chaired the department of chemistry from 1968 to 1971, and received the CSU Outstanding Professor Award in 1974 and 1981. In 1976 Ferguson received the Distinguished American Medallion from the Ameri.can Foundation for Negro Affairs. Ferguson was the only African American to receive an ACS award in chemical education. He published seven textbooks and wrote over fifty journal articles. He helped to develop programs such as Support of the Educationally and Economically Disadvantaged and the Minority Biomedical Research Program that encourage young minority students wishing to pursue higher education and careers in science. In 1972, Ferguson co-founded the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers. Ferguson has a scholarship named after him at the California State University, Los Angeles.

REATHA CLARK KING

Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

LLOYD N. FERGUSON

Prominent orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Augustus A. White, III was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a doctor and a librarian. At thirteen, White left Tennessee to attend Northfield Mount Hermon School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts. Upon graduation, White enrolled at Brown University, earning a B.A. in psychology and varsity letters in football and lacrosse. He then attended Stanford University Medical School, serving as student body President and graduating in 1961. He was the first African American graduate of the Stanford University School of Medicine. Receiving his Ph.D. degree in orthopaedic biomechanics at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, White became the first African American surgical resident at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. White also served in Vietnam as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, earning a Bronze Star. Specializing in care of the spine, White worked at Harvard Medical School as a professor of orthopaedic surgery, and as the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Professor of Medical Education. Dr. White’s major efforts have been directed at the study of the spine and fracture healing.

White was the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Distinguished Professor of Medical Education and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. This made him the first African- American Department chief in a major Harvard teaching hospital. For thirteen years, White served as chief of the orthopaedic surgery department at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston; he also founded the academic orthopaedic program at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. A noted author in his medical specialty, White co-wrote (with Dr. Manohar M. Panjabi), Biomechanics of the Spine and Biomechanics of the Musculoskeletal System. White also wrote Your Aching Back: A Doctor’s Guide to Relief; Back Care; Advances in Spinal Fusion: Molecular Science, Biomechanics and Clinical Management; and Clinical Biometrics of the Spine, a standard reference book for orthopaedists. In 2006, White was awarded the Diversity Award for his life’s work, and his contributions to his field. White met his wife, Anita, during his Ph.D. studies at the Karolinska Institute; the couple had three daughters.

Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

AUGUSTUS A. WHITE III

Walter E. Massey is an American educator, physicist, and executive. He is president emeritus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2018 and previously served as its president beginning in 2010 and chancellor in 2016. He is also chairman of the board overseeing construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope, and serves as trustee chair of the City Colleges of Chicago. Massey’s career had earlier seen him serve for over 10 years as president of Morehouse College. He is also a former head of the National Science Foundation, managing director of Argonne National Laboratory, and chairman of Bank of America. He has served in professorial and administrative posts at the University of California, University of Chicago, Brown University, and the University of Illinois.

he related to Irwin Goodwin in Physics Today. “In theoretical physics, no one reading your papers would know if you were Black or white. There’s no such thing as Black physics.”

Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Massey displayed as a child an unusual aptitude for mathematics. His felicity with numbers earned him, at 16 years old, a Ford Foundation fellowship to Morehouse College in Atlanta. He began studying theoretical physics because it gave him the chance to rise above the discrimination he had witnessed as a youth in the segregated South of the 1940s and 1950s. “So much depends on what people think of you,”

Massey is the only individual to serve as both President and Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and as Chair of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). Additionally, Massey is the only individual to have received both the Enrico Fermi Award for Science and Technology from the Chicago Historical Society and the Public Humanities Award from Illinois Humanities.

Throughout his more than forty years of professional life, Massey has been guided by two overarching principles: first, that science and technology are necessary to sustain the nation’s quality of life and the standard of living of its citizens; and, second, that the general public’s understanding of science and technology is a critical component of a democratic society. Massey’s commitment to these principles has led him to be a proponent of the need for a strong system of national science education, as well as the need to enhance the representation of women and minorities in science and technology.

Illustration by Ernest Crichlow, for the CIBA-GEIGY Corporation Exceptional Black Scientists Poster Series, 1980

WALTER E. MASSEY

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