“Not failure, but low aim is a crime.” –Roger Arlinger Young

To honor Black History Month, our profile this month highlights the life and accomplishments of Dr. Roger Arlinger Young, the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in Zoology and to publish in the journal Science. 

Roger Arlinger Young (1899 – 1964) originally planned to study music at Howard University, but after taking a zoology class and showing an aptitude for science, eminent biologist and department head Ernest Everett Just recruited her to be his research assistant. After graduating, she enrolled in graduate school at the University of Chicago while also serving as assistant professor of zoology at Howard. Her first research project investigated the morphology of Paramecia caudatum, and within only one year, before completing her masters degree, she had published “On the Excretory Apparatus in Paramecium” in the prestigious journal, Science. She described how the different parts of the organism’s digestive system came together to form its continuous structure. 

After completing her masters degree, she started accompanying Just on summer research trips to Woods Hole, one of the most renowned institutions for biological science, and continued her education by enrolling in a PhD program under Frank Rattray Lillie at University of Chicago. Experiments at Woods Hole testing the effects of ultraviolet radiation on marine eggs were to be the basis of her dissertation. As if that wasn’t enough on her plate, Just appointed her as acting department head at Howard University while he conducted research overseas. Unfortunately, all of these competing responsibilities culminated in Young failing her qualifying exam and being dismissed from her graduate program. She eventually received her doctoral degree in 1940, under zoologist Lewis Heilbrunn at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-authored two papers with her new mentor.

Young was hired as an assistant professor at North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, North Carolina, and then as head of the biology department at Shaw University. She became increasingly involved in the labor movement and racial justice in Durham, serving as elected secretary of the NAACP, Durham Chapter, the Board of Directors of the Harriet Tubman YMCA, and an organizer of black workers in the Tobacco Worker’s International Union. Her efforts were considered “subversive” and led to her eventual dismissal from teaching and being blacklisted at colleges along the east coast. Her career after that was sporadic and tenuous, draining her finances.  She eventually began to lose her eyesight from UV light exposure earlier in her career and committed herself to the Mississippi State Asylum for mental health issues where she died in 1964. 

Roger Arlinger Young was a pioneer for black women in science and exemplifies what it means to persevere through challenges, show resolve, and fight for what you believe in. Even if that means it costs you everything.

References and additional reading:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200930-arliner-young-the-black-biologist-failed-by-science

https://www.aaihs.org/zoologist-roger-arliner-young-and-the-politics-of-respectability/