16 Ernest Everett Just

Ernest Everett Just

Time period:

August 14, 1883 – October 27, 1941

Subject:

Biology and Physiology

Biography:

Ernest Everett Just was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1883.  He contracted typhoid fever at the age of 4 impairing his cognitive abilities, resulting in him having to relearn how to read and write.

He attended the college-preparatory high school Kimball Union Academy, completing the four-year program in just three years in 1903 graduating with the highest grades in his class.  Just went onto Dartmouth University and graduated as the only magna cum laude of his class in 1907.

Just became a teacher at Howard University, beginning in the English department then soon becoming a biology instructor.  While there, he earned a PhD in 1916 from the University of Chicago, becoming the first African American to do so.  He eventually became the head of the new Department of Zoology at Howard, holding that position until his death in 1941 due to pancreatic cancer.

Finding it difficult to obtain research funding and work at a traditionally white university, he moved to Europe in 1939.  At the onset of World War II, he was briefly imprisoned by German Nazis, but returned to the United States in 1940.

Summary of their contributions:

Just was the first Black man to work at the Marine Biological Laboratory while obtaining his PhD through the University of Chicago.  His work on the fertilization of marine invertebrates earned him the inaugural NAACP Spingarn Medal in 1915, an award honouring outstanding achievements by an African American.  He discovered the “wave of negativity” occurrence in sea urchin eggs during fertilization, which explains the prevention of too many sperm from entering the egg.

Just was a pioneer in cellular development and fertilization and advocated the study of whole cells under normal conditions, rather than simply breaking them apart in a laboratory.  He made significant contributions to his field, co-authoring the textbook General Cytology with other pioneers in cell biology, first published in June 1924.  Just also authored his own books, Basic Methods for Experiments on Eggs of Marine Animals (1939) and The Biology of the Cell Surface (1939).

Integration with the BC Secondary Science Curriculum:

Science 9: cell division

Life Sciences 11: sexual reproduction

References:

https://www.biography.com/scientists/ernest-everett-just

https://www.brainfacts.org/in-the-lab/meet-the-researcher/2024/black-history-is-ernest-everett-just-022924

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/8-amazing-black-scientists-and-how-they-changed-history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Everett_Just