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
- ^ "Black Mathematicians and Their Work [sic]", MAA Reviews (unreviewed listing), Mathematical Association of America, retrieved 2022-12-13
- ^
a
b
c 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) - ^ a b c d e f g Goins, Edray (February 2021), "Mathematical comfort food", The American Mathematical Monthly, 128 (2): 188, doi: 10.1080/00029890.2021.1853445
- ^
a
b Sonnabend, Tom (November 1980), The Mathematics Teacher, 73 (8): 629,
JSTOR
27962208
{{ citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical ( link) - ^ a b 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
- ^
a
b
c
Zaslavsky, Claudia (February 1983), Historia Mathematica, 10 (1): 105–115,
doi:
10.1016/0315-0860(83)90049-6
{{ citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical ( link)