November 5, 2020

The woman who loved algae

I was trying to find BIPOC zoology authors for the biweekly nonfiction newsletter I run for Book Riot (subscribe here!) and I stumbled across Roger Arliner Young, aka the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in zoology. "Tell me more, Alice!!" you say. Okay, here're some facts:

• Moore was born in 1899 in Virginia, 21 years before (mostly white) women got the vote.
• When she was 17, she enrolled at HBCU Howard University, founded in 1867 (and which did not have a Black president until 1926)
• After becoming interested in zoology, she did her graduate work at the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania

• The ultraviolet rays she used for her work permanently damaged her eyes
• She had an article entitled "On the excretory apparatus in Paramecium" published in Science. As far as I can tell, this title basically means "how algae poop." MORE POWER TO YOU, MA'AM
• She became Chair of the Biology department at Shaw University in North Carolina
• In the 1940s, she joined the NAACP and worked to support unions, which got her blacklisted in North Carolina
• Today, the Roger Arliner Young (RAY) Fellowship strives to increase diversity in Marine Biology in her honor.

Roger Arlinger Young died in poverty in 1964 due to a system that doesn't look for the value in every human being. Her commitment to learning about what she loved and found fascinating paved the way for others, and we remember her today.