The first African American to receive a doctoral degree in the United States was a scientist. Dr. Edward Alexander Bouchet (1852-1918) was a native of New Haven, Connecticut, who graduated from Yale University's undergraduate school in 1874, and completed his Ph.D. in physics there in 1876.
Several years after graduation, Bouchet was elected into Phi Beta Kappa, becoming one of the honor society's first Black members. He spent most of his career sharing his knowledge with other African Americans as a secondary school science educator.
In the fifty-six years following Boucher's graduation, only twelve other African Americans would earn Ph.D.s in the sciences.
Like most racial disparities in the U.S., the dearth of credentialed African American scientists is rooted in the nation's history of racial discrimination. It is difficult to fully comprehend why the current scarcity exists without briefly reviewing the history of African Americans in the sciences.
Early African American scientists have included people like Benjamin Banneker, whose almanac was heralded by Thomas Jefferson; George Washington Carver, the renowned biochemist; Garrett A. Morgan, inventor of the stoplight and gas mask; and Granville T. Woods, the electrical engineer who invented the third rail upon which many subway systems run. These scientists, had no doctoral training
The existence of credentialed African American scientists in any significant number is largely a twentieth-century phenomenon. In the first half of the century, however, even those who did achieve doctoral degrees often found it difficult to obtain jobs within White-dominated scientific institutions because of racial discrimination.
Overcoming Early Resistance
More than a half century after Bouchet's achievement, Dr. Hildrus A. "Gus" Poindexter became the first African American to receive both an M.D. -- which he earned at Harvard University in 1929 -- and a Ph.D. -- which he earned in bacteriology at Columbia University in 1932 . A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Poindexter, had earned his bachelor's degree at historically Black Lincoln University in 1924 before moving on to pre-medical studies at Dartmouth College and then to Harvard. Even after completing his Ph.D., Poindexter earned a master's degree in public health from Columbia in 1937.
