Dr. Ernest Everett Just
Dr. Ernest Everett Just was an extremely skilled experimental embryologist who studied egg fertilization and was the first African American to work at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, to Charles Frazier Just Jr and Mary Matthew Just. After his father’s death, his family moved to James Island, a Gullah community, where he attended the school that his mother founded and directed. Quite the precocious individual, he left at 12 to attend the Colored Normal Industrial Agricultural and Mechanics College (now South Carolina State College). At 15 he graduated with his Licentiate of Instruction (1899), which allowed him to teach at any Black school in South Carolina. Finding teaching unappealing, he went up north and attended Kimball Union Academy, a private boarding school, in New Hampshire. He then graduated as the only magna cum laude in his class with a BA (1907) in Zoology, Special Honors in Botany and History, and Honors in Sociology from Dartmouth College. He also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Through a connection, he ended up at the University of Chicago where he completed his PhD (1916) in Zoology and Physiology focusing on experimental embryology.
Emmett Chappelle
Mr.Emmett Chappelle, widely known as the “Father of Bioluminescence” was an African-American scientist who made grand leaps in the field of research.
Dr. Charles Henry Turner
Dr. Charles Henry Turner was an African-American zoologist, civil rights activist, and educator whose work provided insight into certain behaviors of vertebrates in the19th century.