I somewhat naively started February thinking “I’m going to write about a Black scientist or inventor every day for Black History Month.” No problem, right?
Then I realized through researching for the column exactly why I was big dunderhead and, more exactly, why we need Black History Month.
Today’s Moment of Science… a science writer’s thoughts on information, access, and what’s a part of the story.
There are a lot of factors that go into what I write. Did I receive a suggestion that I can’t stop thinking about? Did I find a terrifying chemical in my husband’s stack of frayed old science textbooks? What do I think is going to hold the readers’ attention? What strikes that balance between being both new and novel and still having enough readily available information to pull together a story in one day?
What comes up when I google search term such as:
“Scientific breakthroughs in the 1100s”
“Parent of a scientific field”
“Tiny scientific mistakes that fucked up a country for a century”
Now, I want to be clear when you read this next part that this is me admitting failure, not that I’ve discovered fire. I’m just trying to do better.
About those google searches.
It’s not that a diverse group of scientists is excluded entirely from those search results. The sad thing I found in my naivete is that it took me until Black History Month as a 37 year old to figure that in order for an incredibly rich history of Black scientists and inventors to show up, I had to specifically google ‘Black scientists.’
I get it, google searches are a flawed critter, but they are an extremely common way that we interact with and make assumptions about information.
Many of the influential Black American scientists I’ve been researching are from one of the first, if not the first generation of their family who were legally allowed to read. I can’t look at that and not see it as a part of the story. It adds a layer of complexity to my research for the column. It takes longer than normal, the back story is deeper, and it’s worth it.
I also make an effort to corroborate information from multiple sources. Each slight difference between sources is a rabbit hole of fact checking. Add in historical backstory and the fact checking grows longer.
Which means it takes longer than a day for me to write some of these the way I want them written.
But check them out- this is just a fraction of the list, and every story is the stuff of legends.
Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr was a child prodigy with a long storied career in nuclear physics. He came from an entire family of overachievers; his father was the first Black cabinet member.
Otis Boykin’s contributions were invaluable to so many inventions, amongst them being the modern pacemaker.
Percy Julian was a pioneering organic chemist in the field of synthesizing pharmaceuticals from plants. His grandparents were enslaved.
Roger Arliner Young was the first Black woman to have received her PhD in zoology, and her story of struggling due to harassment, long term disability, finances, and mental health is tragic and relatable today.
Mary and Mildred Davidson invented a precursor to the maxi pad and I’m still annoyed that they never made a dime.
Charles Henry Turner was a psychologist who, horrifyingly, figured out that cockroaches were capable of learning.
Volumes of incredible stories were left on the editing room floor of the history books, only to be mentioned occasionally in February.
The daily Moment of Science is a collection of stories, to be enjoyed, learned from, perhaps pique your interest in some science that was always around and somehow didn’t make it into your textbooks. Though I aim for airtight scientific accuracy, the real goal is to get you to think a bit more about how science bumps into life and society around us all the time, in these little moments.
Given the date, I clearly have missed my goal of writing about a Black scientist or inventor every day for Black History Month. But I will be writing these stories in regular rotation going forward.
Which I should have been doing in the first place.
Which I think is the lesson here.
Which… again, I’m just trying to do better.
This has been your daily Moment of Science, reminding you that the scientific method means you just have to succeed eventually, but hopefully sooner than later.
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