Every day this month, the Center for Black Educator Development, in partnership with Education Post and Philly’s 7th Ward, will highlight a Black Educator Hall of Famer.
But, don’t forget, e’ry month is Black History Month and February is just the Blackest. All year are ongoing opportunities to learn and teach and the colossal impact Black educators have had on society.
Today, our featured Black educator is Dr. David H. Blackwell.
David Harold Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919, in Centralia, Illinois. He grew up in an interracial neighborhood and attended segregated schools. While in school, he showed high ability in mathematics and his teacher promoted him great levels ahead of his peers. He was such an exceptional student that he graduated from high school at 16 and began his college career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1938 in mathematics, his master’s degree in 1939, and his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1941—becoming only the 7th African American to earn a doctorate in mathematics and the first at the University of Illinois. The Alpha (Phi Alpha) man accomplished all this at twenty-two years old. After his studies, Dr. Blackwell received a prestigious one-year appointment as Rosenwald Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Unfortunately, Blackwell’s appointment was received with racism. Normally, a faculty appointment came with the fellowship; that was not available to Dr. Blackwell. However, he took his talents to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He taught at Southern University, Clark College, and Howard, where he would rise the ranks to become a full professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics.
Dr. Blackwell noted that in his day (as certainly some would agree remains true today) the pinnacle of achievement for an African American academic was an appointment at Howard University: saying that an appointment there, “… was the ambition of every black scholar.”
Dr. Blackwell left Washington D.C. for the University of California at Berkeley, appointed professor of statistics. In 1957, he became chair of the department of statistics. He served in that role until 1961. In addition to teaching, he also served as an assistant dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1964-1968. He retired from the university in 1988.
Dr. Blackwell served on numerous committees and received numerous honors. In 1965, he became the first African American named to the National Academy of Sciences. He was known for his independent invention of dynamic programming, which is used today in finance and in various areas of science, including genome analysis. A professor of distinction, he published 80 papers and held 12 honorary degrees from universities across the nation.
David Harold Blackwell; a member of the Black Educator Hall of Fame.
For more information on David H. Blackwell, visit the following site.
