David Blackwell
I caught this obituary in the NY Times: David Blackwell, Scholar of Probability, Dies at 91. He was the first black tenured professor at Berkeley as well as the first black scholar admitted to the National Academy of Sciences. He was an expert on game theory and probability. If you read his bio, it’s fascinating how he succeeded despite the racial obstacles that society presented.
I wonder why this is the only article I saw about Blackwell. You would think that his story could serve as an inspiration to many, especially in an era when Americans are falling behind the rest of the world in math and science. Maybe it’s because the subject matter of his life’s work is too hard for the general populace to understand?
In any case, I hope people here can find his story inspirational.
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
Two Black intellectuals that I respect the most (who are still alive, btw) are Georgetown University Professor of Sociology Michael Eric Dyson and the Hoover Institute economist Thomas Sowell. One can view clips of Sowell talking about a whole range of fascinating shit on National Review’s “Uncommon Knowledge” with Peter Robinson.
http://www.nationalreview.com/search/?q=thomas+sowell&sa=Search+NRO&cx=partner-pub-7596656896688386%3Aktx6rmwscfs&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=ISO-8859-1#1051
I like Claude and Shelby Steele (even though they might not like each other). Hmm…maybe it’s easier to make a name in the social sciences vs. the hard sciences?