Black Mathematicians and Their Works

Black Mathematicians and Their Works is an edited volume of works in and about mathematics, by African-American mathematicians. It was edited by Virginia Newell, Joella Gipson, L. Waldo Rich, and Beauregard Stubblefield, with a foreword by Wade Ellis, and published in 1980 by Dorrance & Company. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has recommended its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.[1]

Contents

The book celebrates the achievements of black mathematicians and also records their struggle against racism.[2][3] It includes reprints of 23 papers of mathematics research and three more on mathematics education, by black mathematicians.[2][3][4] It provides brief biographies and photographs of 62 black mathematicians,[5] all long-established at the time of publication (having doctorates prior to 1973).[6] It also reproduces several letters by Lee Lorch documenting racist behavior in mathematical societies,[3] such as exclusion from conferences and their associated social gatherings.[5] An appendix lists universities that have worked with black mathematicians, by the number of doctorates conferred and the number of faculty hired.[2]

As well as two of the editors (Gipson and Stubblefield), the authors whose works are reproduced in the book include Albert Turner Bharucha-Reid, David Blackwell, Lillian K. Bradley, Marjorie Lee Browne, Edward M. Carroll, William Schieffelin Claytor, Vivienne Malone-Mayes, Clarence F. Stephens, Walter Richard Talbot, and J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.[3][6]

Reception

Black Mathematicians and Their Works was the first book to collect the works of black mathematicians,[3][4] and 40 years after its publication it remained the only such book.[3] By demonstrating the successes of black mathematicians, it aimed to counter the then-current opinion that black people could not do mathematics, and provide encouragement to young black future mathematicians.[6]

Edray Herber Goins has named this book as his "mathematical comfort food", writing:[3]

Whenever I question whether black folk are making progress in these United States, I think of the articles in this volume, and those pioneers who continued to do math in the face of blatant racism.

References
  1. "Black Mathematicians and Their Work [sic]", MAA Reviews (unreviewed listing), Mathematical Association of America, retrieved 2022-12-13
  2. Sims, Janet L. (Summer 1981), The Journal of Negro History, 66 (2): 160–161, doi:10.2307/2717293, JSTOR 2717293{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  3. Goins, Edray (February 2021), "Mathematical comfort food", The American Mathematical Monthly, 128 (2): 188, doi:10.1080/00029890.2021.1853445
  4. Sonnabend, Tom (November 1980), The Mathematics Teacher, 73 (8): 629, JSTOR 27962208{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  5. Kenschaft, Patricia Clark (1997), "What next? A meta-history of black mathematicians", African Americans in mathematics: Proceedings of the second conference for African-American researchers in the mathematical sciences held at DIMACS, Piscataway, NJ, USA, June 26–28, 1996, Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, pp. 183–186, ISBN 0-8218-0678-5, Zbl 1155.01347; review, p. 185
  6. Zaslavsky, Claudia (February 1983), Historia Mathematica, 10 (1): 105–115, doi:10.1016/0315-0860(83)90049-6{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
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