In spite of educational discrimination over time, blacks embraced careers in fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and mathematics and helped advance scientific knowledge.

For example, Percy L. Julian (1899–1975) finished Depauw University (valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa); an M.S. at Harvard, which would not continue him; and a Ph.D. (chemistry) at the University of Vienna. Then “potential employers snubbed him. ‘We didn't know you were a Negro.’” He became a Howard University professor, Depauw faculty visitor, an industry scientist, and created Julian Laboratories in Chicago (1953); he sold the labs “for more than $2 million in 1961” and established the nonprofit Julian Research Institute (1964). His research generated 130 chemical patents and financial aid for college students. In 1999 the American Chemical Society “recognized his synthesis of physostigmine, a glaucoma drug, as one of the top 25 achievements in the history of American chemistry. He was the first black chemist ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences” (Lee, 2007).

The record of African Americans in science mirrors Julian's career. Blacks earned 511 doctorates in graduate science programs of 34 institutions between 1876 and 1969. More than a third specialized in biological sciences. Ohio State and Iowa were first and second, with 45 and 36, and Howard, the only black institution included, was tenth with 18. Universities awarded 1,251 chemistry doctorates in 1999, including 46 or 4 percent to blacks.

Those statistics reflect inequality in schooling and graduate school admissions, as well as institutions’ uneven adoption of affirmative action. A “controversial and politically sensitive” policy, it posits that denial of equal opportunity (past and present) adversely affects blacks’ performance on standardized tests and measures. Blacks still contribute to science professions. Historically black North Carolina A. & T., Tennessee State, and Tuskegee universities award the Ph.D. in agronomy and engineering. Howard and Meharry medical schools, which enrolled and trained 85 percent of black M.D.'s in the twentieth century, made “strong showings in traditional measures of achievement.” Similarly noted is the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), formed in 1975 by Louis W. Sullivan, Morehouse ‘54, hematologist, and Secretary of Health and Human Services (1989–92). MSM admitted its first class in 1981 and was accredited in 1985. By 2002 it had graduated 602 doctors, 68 percent in primary care; 84 percent of them practiced in underserved areas.