Alfred oscar coffin biography
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Meet the first Black American to earn an evolutionary biology Ph.D.
A Voice in the Wilderness
Joseph L. Graves Jr.
Basic Books, $30
It’s both good and bad that the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology is not a long-ago hidden figure but a contemporary scientist. On the upside, there’s no agonizing over papers no one saved, no stitching together other people’s memoirs to guess what pioneering might have felt like. Instead, Joseph L. Graves Jr., who finished his degree in 1988, tells his story himself in A Voice in the Wilderness.
But evolutionary biology’s first Black Ph.D. in 1988? That “first” came late even considering that the field took a while to declare itself a specialty. The Society for the Study of Evolution didn’t form until 1946.
Long before that, U.S. Black biologists had started cracking the glass ceiling of academic credentials. Graves credits Alfred O. Coffin as the first Black American to earn a biological Ph.D., awarded in 1889. He began a slow, intermittent series of Black Ph.D. biologists, who also struggled to get jobs befitting their credentials. Even now, while nearly 14 percent of the U.S. population is Black, Black scientists make up only about 3 percent of the resident Ph.D.s working in a biological discipline.
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Historically Black College
Alfred Oscar Coffin was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in a field of the biological sciences
"Coffin, Alfred Oscar, contracting agent Blind Boone Concert Co.; born at Pontotoc, Miss., May 14, 1861; son of Samuel and Josephine Maria(Drake) Coffin; prep. edu. Rust Univ., Holly Springs, Miss.; A. B., Fisk Univ., 1885; A. M., Illinois Weslayen Univ., 1888, Ph. D., 1889; one child; Lillian Viola. Professor in Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, Miss., 1887-89; professor of mathematics and modern languages, Wiley Univ., Marshall, Texas, 1889-95; secretary and disbursement agent, Alcorn A & M, 1895-8; principal public schools, San Antonio, Tex., 1898-1901, Kansas City, 1902-09; advance agent for Blind Boone Concert Co., since 1910. Methodist. 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason. Author; 'Origin of the Moundbuilders, " 1889; 'Native Plants of Marshall, Texas,' 1896; 'A Land Without Chimneys, or the Byways of Mexico,' 1897. Address; 1704 E. 10th St., Kansas City, Mo."
Who's who of the colored race: a general biographical dictionary of men and ...
by Frank Lincoln Mather - 1915
Mr. Coffin graduated from Fisk University in 1885, and has held important pos
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Celebrating Black Life Month - Alfred Honour Coffin
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