William Jacob Knox Jr.

First edition of Knox's grandmother's autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Knox was born on January 5, 1904, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to William Knox, a US postal worker, and Estella Briggs.[3] William had a slave heritage as his grandfather, Elijah Knox, bought his freedom from slavery in 1846. One of the grandmothers of the Knox children was Harriet Jacobs, the writer of a popular slave narrative titled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The Knox family had a strong "tradition of upward mobility through education".[3]

William was the oldest of 5 children. Knox and his two younger brothers, Clinton Everett and Lawrence "Larry" Howland, all attended Harvard University (as well as other universities). All three earned doctoral degrees, William and Lawrence studying chemistry and Clinton studying history. William entered Harvard as an undergraduate in September 1921 and graduated in 1925.[4] During his time at Harvard, William faced persecution and fought racist discrimination. He was accepted into Harvard University's undergraduate program in 1921. He was told to report to the freshman housing once he arrived for the semester. Upon arriving, Knox was immediately ousted for being black and was forced to give up his room in the whites-only dormitories.[2] This confrontation with the housing at Harvard and many other instances such as realtors only offering an abandoned brothel may have influenced Knox heavily, as he would join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Rochester, New York, after his work in the Manhattan Project. William Knox confronted discrimination head-on by receiving further education.

In 1929, Knox began to teach at Howard University, a private university in Washington, D.C. While instructing at Howard, Knox was introduced to his wife, Edna Lenora Jordan. Knox and Jordan were legally wed on September 1, 1931. Together they had one child, Sandra Knox.

After obtaining his master's degree in organic chemistry (1929) and Ph.D. in chemical engineering (1935) from MIT,[1] Knox became a professor in the chemistry department at North Carolina A&T College. Knox taught general, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry from 1935 to 1942.[3] In 1942, Knox took a promotion, leaving North Carolina A&T to become the head of the department of chemistry at Talladega College, a historically black institution in Talladega, Alabama.

The Trinity Test, the result of the Manhattan Project

In 1943, one year after taking the position of chair of chemistry at Talladega College, Knox joined a team of scientists at Columbia University, known as the Manhattan Project, in New York City (1942–1945).[3] The Manhattan Project consisted of researching teams at Columbia University as well as developing sites for plutonium and uranium at Hanford, Washington, Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.[5] William's brother Lawrence eventually joined him at Columbia University as a head research analyst for the Manhattan Project in New York City.

The project would be successful, as the United States developed the first atomic weapons in history and brought the end of World War II with the dropping of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Knox's team researched and innovated the isolation of uranium isotopes using gaseous diffusion. The government compiled several influential and highly educated individuals in the atomic field at Columbia University.[6] The university was awarded with the government's first federal contract to explore the use of atomic power for energy and weapons.[7] Experiments at Columbia University indicated that "uranium might be used as an explosive that would liberate a million times as much energy per pound as any known explosive".[8]

Knox held a position unprecedented at the time, being the only African-American scientist to be a supervisor in the Manhattan Project. Like many scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, Knox and his team were unaware of how vital their research was. The complex process of breaking apart uranium isotopes utilizing uranium hexafluoride was crucial to the development of the atomic bombs used to end war with Japan in 1945. Uranium-235 and plutonium-239 made up the composite core of the atomic weapons.[9] Knox was a section leader in the Corrosion Section before leaving Columbia University at the end of the war.[10]

Knox clearly cared for his community and fought for social justice, having faced discrimination throughout his life and being an active member of his local chapter of the NAACP. As Knox searched for housing near his daughter's schooling, he was unable. A coworker recognized his struggles and bought a lot under his name, which he then sold to Knox. This prompted Knox to get involved in fighting against housing injustices and for basic civil rights.[4] Knox was a founding member of the Urban League of Rochester. As a response to civil unrest in 1965, the League was established to "Enable African-Americans, Latinos, the poor and other disadvantaged to secure economic self-reliance, parity and power and civil rights".[15] The league, being a local chapter of the National Urban League, provides over 30 programs for individuals that are struggling in any aspect of life. The league also gives out scholarships to minority students, of which Knox was a donor for.[10] Today, the Urban League of Rochester serves over 4,000 individuals. Knox, being a founding member of the Urban League of Rochester, showed that he not only fought against social injustice but also strove to better his community as well.