Thinkers Timeline

Percy Lavon Julian (1899-1975) was an African American chemist whose pioneering synthesis of plant-derived steroids made cortisone and other hormone-based medicines widely available for the first time. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the grandson of former slaves. Alabama's public schools did not offer education beyond the eighth grade to Black children at the time, but his parents — a railway mail clerk and a teacher — insisted on his further education. He entered DePauw University in Indiana as what the institution called a sub-freshman, taking high school classes alongside his college studies, and graduated as valedictorian in 1920. American graduate programmes in chemistry were largely closed to Black students; he was refused admission at several top universities and taught for several years at historically Black colleges before winning a fellowship for graduate work at Harvard. Harvard gave him a master's degree but denied him the chance to teach or to complete a doctorate because of his race. He eventually earned his doctorate in Vienna in 1931, one of the few options then available. In 1935 he completed the total synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine, used to treat glaucoma, beating a competing English group. Unable to get university chemistry positions because of his race, he joined the Glidden Company, a paint manufacturer, where he led research that developed industrial methods for producing steroids from soybean oil — processes that made cortisone affordable to patients with rheumatoid arthritis and opened the way to a generation of hormone-based medicines. He later founded his own company. He and his family faced racist violence in the Chicago suburb where they bought a house in 1950, including attempts to burn and bomb their home. He died in 1975. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973, the second African American so honoured.