#amplifyblackstem

We’re a little late writing this, but last week we took part in #ShutDownSTEM and spent some time learning and researching about Black botanists. 

First, it’s important to remember that the history of academia, and botany in particular, is pretty darn racist. A lot of plant common names (and some scientific names) are horribly racist. Not to mention that a lot of specimen collections were conducted using slave labor or the infrastructure of slavery and oppression. We as botanists can’t ignore that or pretend that it doesn’t affect people to this day. There are disproportionately few Black people in STEM, and that’s a problem. 

But Black people have always been important in botany, both in research and in agriculture and ethnobotany, which, as you guys know, we’re pretty excited about on this blog. One of the most well-known examples of this is with upland rice growing. Oryza glaberrima, one of the most common species of rice, was domesticated in West Africa 2000-3000 years ago, and still grown there today. It’s hardier than Asian rice, and tastes really good. If you’ve seen the post recently where they show how rice could be braided into a Black girl’s hair to transport it, then you have seen one of the key theories for how this species came to the Americas. Unfortunately, the name of whoever first brought this species across the ocean has been lost. In Suriname and Jamaica, this species was essential to the survival of people who escaped from slavery and brought with them the agricultural knowledge of West African peoples.

Probably the historical Black botanist that most of us know best is George Washington Carver. I’ve actually held some of the bryophyte specimens that he collected in Iowa! Carver was born into slavery, kidnapped, and lost to his family at an early age but eventually became the first Black student at Iowa State University. Living in Iowa, you see his name a lot! Although he has a number of botanical and mycological collections and even discovered some undescribed species of fungi (which now bear his name) Carver is best known for his work with legumes as a professor at Tuskeegee University (then the Tuskeegee Institute), including studying fungal infections in soybeans and the economic uses of peanuts. 

Another historical Black botanist of great importance was Marie Clark Taylor, who was the first woman (of any race) to obtain a PhD from Fordham University in a STEM field. She primarily studied light-mediated development of plants, and after serving in WWII, later went on to be a university instructor at Howard University and teach for NSF programs. 

For those of you excited about mycology, O’Neil Ray Collins studied mating types in the myxomycetes, the work for which he is probably best known. He also served as Associate Dean of graduate students at U.C. Berkeley. 

Today I am stepping way outside of my wheelhouse to present the essential contributions of Dr. O’Neil Ray Collins to the field of mycology. 

Dr. Collins was born in Opelousas, Louisiana in 1931. He earned his bachelor of science at Southern University in 1957, his master’s and PhD at the University of Iowa, in 1959 and 1961. He taught at Queens College, Southern University, Wayne State University, and would go on to become chairman of the botany department and UC Berkeley. His research over the years focused on myxomycete (slime mold) reproduction and genetics. He discovered heterothalism and homothalism in Didymium and Physarum plasmodial slime molds, and researched incompatibility, cytotoxicity, mating-type diversity, and speciation in slime molds during his scientific career. He was the chairman for the microbiology section the Botanical Society of America in 1968, and a Councilor in Genetics and Cytology for the Mycological Society of America from 1980-1983. 

He was a persistent advocate for diversity in academia, and served as the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley where he developed the Graduate Minority Program in 1970. And in 1987, he created the introductory course “Biology, Evolution, and Race.” 

Sadly, he passed away in 1989 sue to Hodgkin’s Disease. But his legacy continues on in the form of his crucial contributions to slime mold genetics, and as the only African-American biologist to achieve a tenured position at UC Berkeley. 

Black lives matter. Black ideas matter. Black academics matter. Black science matters. Systematic racism in the U.S. prevents black students and scientists from being able to reach their full potential. We need to stand against racism in all its forms. We need to change the system. History would like you to forget the contributions of people labelled as “other.” It is our job to remember them.