Ernest Everett Just
Encyclopedia
Ernest Everett Just was a pioneering African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...

, academic and science writer. Just's primary legacy is his recognition of the fundamental role of the cell surface in the development of organisms. In his work within marine biology
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...

, cytology
Cell biology
Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...

 and parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction found in females, where growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by a male...

, he advocated the study of whole cells under normal conditions, rather than simply breaking them apart in a laboratory setting.

Early life

Just was born in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 to Charles Frazier Just Jr. and Mary Matthews Just on 14 August 1883. His father and grandfather, Charles Sr., were dock builders. When Ernest was four years old, both his father and grandfather died. Just’s mother became the sole supporter of him, his younger brother, and his younger sister. Mary Matthews Just taught at an African American school in Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

 to support her family. During the summer, she worked in the phosphate
Phosphate
A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in...

 mine
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

s on James Island
James Island (South Carolina)
James Island is one of South Carolina's most urban Sea Islands. The island is separated from peninsular downtown Charleston by the Ashley River, from the mainland by Wappoo Creek and the Wappoo Cut, and from Johns Island by the Stono River...

. Noticing that there was much vacant land near the island, Mary persuaded several black families to move there to farm. The town they founded, now incorporated in the West Ashley area of Charleston, was eventually named Maryville in her honor.

Hoping Just would become a teacher, his mother sent him to an all-black boarding school in Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, also known as "The Garden City," is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city is also the fifth oldest city in the state of South Carolina. The city population was 12,765 at the 2000 census, within a Greater Orangeburg...

 at the age of thirteen. Believing that schools for blacks in the south were inferior, Just and his mother thought it better for him to go north. At the age of sixteen, Just enrolled at a Meriden, New Hampshire
Meriden, New Hampshire
Meriden is a village in the eastern part of the town of Plainfield in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. Meriden is home to Kimball Union Academy, a private boarding school....

 college-preparatory high school, Kimball Union Academy
Kimball Union Academy
Kimball Union Academy is a private boarding school located in New Hampshire. Founded in 1813, it is the 22nd oldest boarding school in the United States...

. Tragedy struck during Just's second year at Kimball when his mother died. Despite this hardship, Just completed the four-year program in only three years, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa  and graduated in 1903 with the highest grades in his class.

Just went on to graduate magna cum laude from Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 in Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....

. Just won special honors in zoology, and distinguished himself in botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 as well. He was also honored as a Rufus Choate
Rufus Choate
Rufus Choate , American lawyer and orator, was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a descendant of an English family which settled in Massachusetts in 1643. His first cousin, physician George Choate, was the father of George C. S. Choate and Joseph Hodges Choate...

 scholar for two years.

Founding of Omega Psi Phi

On November 17, 1911, Ernest assisted three Howard students (Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper, and Frank Coleman), in establishing Omega Psi Phi
Omega Psi Phi
Omega Psi Phi is a fraternity and is the first African-American national fraternal organization to be founded at a historically black college. Omega Psi Phi was founded on November 17, 1911, at Howard University in Washington, D.C.. The founders were three Howard University juniors, Edgar Amos...

 Fraternity, Inc.

Career

When he graduated from Dartmouth, Just faced the same problems as all black college graduates of his time: no matter how brilliant they were or how high were their grades, it was almost impossible for blacks to become faculty members of white colleges or universities. Just then took what seemed to be the best choices available to him and was appointed to a teaching position at historically black Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

 in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. In 1910, he was put in charge of the newly formed biology department by Wilbur P. Thirkield
Wilbur P. Thirkield
Wilbur Patterson Thirkield was born on September 25, 1854 in Franklin, Ohio. He was the son of Eden Burrows Thirkield, a prominent merchant of that town. The Thirkield family had long been involved with the Methodist Church. James E. Thirkield, Wilbur's grandfather, had moved from Pennsylvania...

. In 1912, he became head of the Department of Zoology, a position he held until his death in 1941. Just was soon introduced to Dr. Frank R. Lillie, head of the biology department at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. Lillie, who was also chief of the Marine Biological Laboratory
Marine Biological Laboratory
The Marine Biological Laboratory is an international center for research and education in biology, biomedicine and ecology. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest independent marine laboratory in the Americas, taking advantage of a coastal setting in the Cape Cod village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts...

 (MBL) at Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands...

, invited Just to spend the summer of 1909 as his research assistant at the MBL. For the next 20 years, Just spent every summer but one at MBL. On June 12, 1912 Ernest married Ethel Highwarden, who taught German at Howard University. They had three children: Margaret, Highwarden, and Maribel.

In 1915, Just took a leave of absence from Howard to enroll in an advanced academic program at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. That same year, Just, who was gaining a national reputation as an outstanding young scientist, was the first recipient of the NAACP's Spingarn Medal
Spingarn Medal
The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for outstanding achievement by an African American....

 on February 12, 1915. In June 1916, Just received his Ph.D. in experimental embryology, with a thesis on the mechanics of fertilization, from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, becoming one of the handful of blacks who had gained this degree from a major university.

Just, however, became frustrated because he could not attain an appointment to a major American university. He wanted a position that would provide a steady income and allow him to spend more time with his research. The same year, he conducted experiments at the zoological
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 station in Naples, Italy. Then, in 1930, he became the first American to be invited to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science was a German scientific institution established in 1911. It was implicated in Nazi science, and after the Second World War was wound up and its functions replaced by the Max Planck Society...

 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, where several Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 winners conducted research.

Beginning in 1933, Just ceased his work in Germany when the Nazis began to take the control of the country. He relocated his European-based studies to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Just authored two books, Basic Methods for Experiments on Eggs of Marine Mammals (1922) and The Biology of the Cell Surface (1939), and he also published several scientific papers relating to cell cytoplasm.

Death

At the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Ernest Just was working at the "Station Biologique" in Roscoff, France, researching the paper that would become Unsolved Problems of General Biology. Although the French government requested foreigners to evacuate the country, Just remained to complete his work. In 1940, Germany invaded France and Just was briefly imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp. He was rescued by the U.S. State Department and returned to his home country in September 1940. However, Just had been very ill for months prior to his arrest and his condition deteriorated in prison and on the journey back to the U.S. In the fall of 1941, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...

, and died shortly thereafter.

Legacy

Just was the subject of the 1983 biography Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just by Kenneth R. Manning
Kenneth Manning
Kenneth R. Manning is an American academic professor and author. He is currently the Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric and of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .-Early life and education:...

. The book received the 1983 Pfizer Award
Pfizer Award
The Pfizer Award is awarded annually by the History of Science Society "in recognition of an outstanding book dealing with the history of science"- Pfizer Awardees :...

 and was a finalist for the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...

.

In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Just.

Beginning in 2000, the Medical University of South Carolina
Medical University of South Carolina
The Medical University of South Carolina opened in Charleston, South Carolina in 1824 as a small private college for the training of physicians. It is one of the oldest continually operating school of medicine in the United States and the oldest in the Deep South...

 has hosted the annual Ernest E. Just Symposium to encourage non-white students to pursue careers in biomedical sciences and health professions.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante is an African-American scholar, historian, and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African American studies, African Studies and Communication Studies...

 included Just on his list of the 100 Greatest African Americans
100 Greatest African Americans
100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary of the one hundred historically greatest African Americans , as assessed by Molefi Kete Asante in 2002.-Criteria:...

.

External links

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