Joseph L. Graves Jr., the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology (in 1988), tells his story in A Voice in the Wilderness.
, a long whack-a-mole history of serial racist pseudoscience. Polygeny, for instance, a popular 19th century delusion, held that races had independent origins and were separate species. In the 20th century, the selective breeding notions of eugenics supposedly justified forced sterilizations and exterminations to purge unwanted traits as if people were livestock. Misuse of science continues, though Graves highlights a few heroes who have summoned science to fight the perversions.
Another critical boost came from a student teacher who noticed that the library books he read were more complicated than his classmates’ reading. At the age of 13, for instance, he was fascinated by Charles Darwin’sAt another turning point, he convinced some kids playing chess to let him have a try. He lost badly but found two chess books in the library that he devoured that night. “In hindsight, I credit chess with being the most important factor changing the trajectory of my life,” he writes.
For his Ph.D., at first he wanted to go to Harvard University despite his experiences on campus visits. He recalls “European American students coming back and locking their offices or removing valuables from sight when I walked through the common area.”
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