Carter Godwin Woodson was born on December 19, 1875 at New Canton, VA. He was an American historian who first opened the long-neglected field of black studies to scholars and also popularized the field in the schools and colleges of blacks. To focus attention on black contributions to civilization, he founded Negro History Week in 1926. This celebration and remembrance would later evolve into Black History Month.
In 1915 he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to encourage scholars to engage in the intensive study of the past as it related to Africans and their descendants through the world. Prior to this work, the field had been largely neglected or distorted in the hands of historians who accepted the traditionally biased picture of blacks in American and world affairs. In 1916 Woodson edited the first issue of the association's principal scholarly publication, The Journal of Negro History, which, under his direction, remained an important historical periodical for more than 30 years. Woodson died on April 3, 1950, in Washington, D.C. Many people ask why Black History Month is in February. Woodson chose February because even though the 13th Amendment to the constitution was signed in January which abolished slavery, slaves did not start to hear of the news until February.
O.S. (Ozzie) Williams was the first Black Aeronautical Engineer to be hired by Republic Aviation, Inc. during World War II. Within four years he was promoted to Senior Aerodynamicist. After the war he joined Greer Hydraulics, Inc. where he became the group project engineer from 1956 to 1962. At Greer Hydraulics he helped develop the first airborne radar beacon, useful for locating crashed aircraft. As a trained designer of small rocket engine design, Williams was also associated with the Reaction Motors Division of Thiokol Chemical Corporation from 1962 to present. In 1961 he joined Grumman International, where he was in charge of developing and producing rocket control systems as a Rocket Propulsion Engineer. These control systems were used in guiding lunar landing modules during NASA's Apollo moon landings. Wilkins responsibility included administering nearly forty million dollars in subcontracts. Ozzie Williams is now vice president of Grumman International, in charge of trade and industrial relations with emerging African nations. In 1973 was part of a Market Survey Mission to West Africa to establish the Grumman African headquarters. His work with the trade and industrial relations includes the application of solar and wind energy to African needs. He served as Task Force Leader in activating students in black colleges to prepare for business and technology careers.
Shirley Ann Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. in 1946. She received her B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968 and her Ph.D. (Physics) in 1973. Shirley Jackson became the first African American female to receive a doctorate in Theoretical Solid State physics from MIT. Dr. Jackson became a Research Associate in Theoretical Physics at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory from 1973-1974 and served as a Visiting Science Associate at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (1974-1975). In 1975-76, Dr. Jackson returned to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory as a Research Associate in Theoretical Physics. She spent 1976-77 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Aspen Center for Physics. Dr. Jackson then served on the Technical Staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in theoretical physics from 1976 until 1978. In 1978 Shirley Jackson began working with the Technical Staff of the Scattering and Low Energy Physics Research Laboratory of Bell Telephone Laboratories. From 1976 to 1991 Dr. Jackson was appointed as Professor of Physics at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J. From 1991 to 1995, Dr. Jackson serving concurrently with her professorship at Rutgers as a consultant in semiconductor theory to AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. Dr. Jackson was appointed as Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and assumed the Chairmanship on May 2, 1995.
Her research has focused on Landau theories of charge density waves in one- and two-dimensions. Dr. Jackson's research also touched on two-dimensional Yang-Mills gauge theories and neutrino reactions. "I am interested in the electronic, optical, magnetic, and transport properties of novel semiconductor systems. Of special interest are the behavior of magnetic polarons in semimagnetic and dilute magnetic semiconductors, and the optical response properties of semiconductor quantum-wells and superlattices. My interests also include quantum dots, mesoscopic systems, and the role of antiferromagnetic fluctuations in correlated 2D electron systems."
The Honorable Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was named the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, effective July 1, 1999.
This site was created by T.J. Honeycutt for the ORNL African-American Heritage Month 2000 Committee in coorperation with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Office of Workforce Diversity.