African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a massive research and development initiative led by the United States during World War II, to design and build the first atomic weapons. The project was coordinated under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Research and production of fissile material and weapons development took place at more than thirty sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Key sites included SAM Laboratories at Columbia University, where researchers considered the theoretical foundations, feasibility and design issues of dealing with atomic particles while carrying out experiments with the Columbia cyclotron; the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where researchers developed methods for uranium processing, enrichment, and plutonium production; the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where the first nuclear reactor was designed and built; the Hanford Engineer Works, where plutonium was produced and separated from uranium; and the Los Alamos Laboratory, where nuclear weapon development was carried out. An estimated 130,000 Americans worked at secret facilities in the United States and Canada on the Manhattan Project between 1941 and 1946. Their jobs varied widely, from construction workers and clerks to theoretical physicists. The end of World War II brought with it the end of the Manhattan Project. The Atomic Energy Act was signed into law on August 1, 1946, creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). It went into effect on January 1, 1947. Los Alamos became the Los Alamos National Laboratory, under AEC direction. The Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory was succeeded by the Argonne National Laboratory. A number of the African-American scientists and technicians continued to work at the Argonne National Laboratory, while others sought jobs in teaching and industry. == Scientists and technicians ==

Several hundred scientists and technicians were involved in the Manhattan Project, of whom a few men and women were African-American. Once the project ceased to be a secret, publications like Ebony hailed African-American scientists and technicians as role models and "progressive heroes". File:Blanche-j-lawrence ebony February 1949.png|Blanche J. Lawrence File:Benjamin-f.-scott-208x300.jpg | Benjamin Franklin Scott File:Carolyn Beatrice Parker.jpg|Carolyn Parker File:Cynthia Hall ebony February 1949 p28.jpg|Cynthia Hall File:Ella Tyree ebony February 1949 p26.jpg|Ella Tyree J. Ernest Wilkins 1944 Tuskegee University.png|Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr. File:Harold Evans ebony February 1949 p27.jpg|Harold B. Evans File:Herschel Wallace ebony February 1949 p26.jpg|Herschel D. Wallace File:Lloyd Quarterman ebony February 1949 p28.jpg|Lloyd A. Quarterman File:Phillip A Sellars ebony February 1949 p26.jpg|Phillip A. Sellars File:Gardner-Chavis.jpg|Ralph Gardner-Chavis File:Robert Pairs ebony February 1949 p28.jpg|Robert B. Pairs File:Samuel P Massie in lab.jpg|Samuel P. Massie File:Sylvanus Tyler ebony February 1949 p27.jpg|Sylvanus A. Tyler File:Virgil Trice ebony February 1949 p28.jpg|Virgil Trice File:NewKnoxHeadshot.jpg|William Jacob Knox Jr. File:Lawrence Knox - Bates College 1928 Mirror yearbook p 43 (cropped).jpg | Lawrence H. Knox == Race and education ==

The background and education of the scientists and technicians who worked on the Manhattan Project was strongly influenced by where they lived. As of 1910, over 90% of the African-American population lived in the Southern United States. Between 1916 and 1940, many African Americans moved from rural areas to cities, and from the southern to the north and western United States, in search of better economic and social conditions. This Great Migration was followed, beginning in 1940, by a Second Great Migration in which many African American urban laborers moved northward to take up skilled jobs, often in the defense industry. Educational opportunities were limited, particularly in the south. In 1933, in the southern United States, just 54% of white students and only 18% of black students went on to attend high school. Segregated black high schools and colleges in the south had limited resources and were able to offer few opportunities for scientific training. Northern high schools and universities offered more opportunities to study science, though they too were affected by racism. Jasper Brown Jeffries was born in Mocksville, North Carolina, near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Another Philadelphian, Harold Delaney, received his bachelor's and master's degrees from traditionally black Howard University before joining the project. William Jacob Knox Jr. and his younger brother Lawrence H. Knox, were born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Both earned Ph.D.’s prior to World War II. In spite of being refused lodging in the dormitories with the white students upon his arrival at Harvard University, William earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard. He then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his Master's and Ph.D. degrees, receiving his Ph.D. in 1935. His brother Lawrence completed degrees at Bates College and Stanford University before going to Harvard University and receiving his Ph.D. in 1940. Child prodigy J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. came from a prominent black family in Chicago. He entered the University of Chicago at age 13. When he received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University in 1942 he was only 19. Wilkins taught at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama from 1942 to 1944, and joined the Manhattan Project in 1944. == Working and living conditions ==

Pressure from African American A. Philip Randolph and other labor unionists led to the signing of Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. The preamble read: Work on federal projects such as the Manhattan Project therefore offered opportunities for advancement for African Americans. However, those involved still experienced various forms of racism. Depending in part on location, workers were affected by segregation and inequities in pay and housing. Oak Ridge, Tennessee The Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was created for the Manhattan Project. Chosen in 1942, the area was made a military district outside of state control through a presidential proclamation of July 1943. Most but not all African Americans were laborers. The rest of the staff in the section were white. and Benjamin Franklin Scott (Masters, University of Chicago, 1950). Mathematician and engineer Jesse Ernest Wilkins and Ralph Gardner-Chavis initially worked with Enrico Fermi on the study of plutonium. Edward Teller saw the opportunity to recruit Wilkins to New York, and recommended him to the director of war research, Harold Urey. Wilkins remained at the Met Lab. Jeffries and Wilkins later signed the Szilárd petition, appealing to President Truman to warn Japan or demonstrate the atomic bomb before using it against Japan. After the war, Wilkins worked for the American Optical Company in Buffalo, New York as a mathematician. In the 1950s, he managed the Research and Development Division of the United Nuclear Corporation, and researched peaceful uses of nuclear energy. George Warren Reed Jr. earned a master's degree as an organic chemist at Howard University in 1944. He worked at the Met Lab on the purification of uranium. He tried to convince the draft board to grant him recognition and benefits under the G.I. Bill, comparable to white researchers he worked with, but was unsuccessful. After the war Reed continued to work with the University of Chicago and the Metallurgical Laboratory's successor, the Argonne National Laboratory. He later studied meteorites and lunar samples from the Apollo missions. == Major contributions ==

The work involved in the Manhattan Project was kept deeply secret. However, a number of African-American scientists are known to have made significant scientific contributions in a variety of areas. African-Americans contributed to the theoretical understanding of nuclear physics and the extraction and processing of the fissionable uranium isotope, Uranium-235, which was used in Little Boy. An African-American physicist worked with polonium, which was used as an initiator for the Fat Man bomb. Chemist Lloyd Albert Quarterman worked at Chicago's Met Lab from 1943 to 1949. Quarterman worked with fluorine, one of the most reactive and dangerous elements. He was chiefly responsible for the design and construction of a distillation system that used electrolysis to purify large quantities of hydrogen fluoride (also extremely dangerous), which was used to isolate the isotope U-235 from uranium. He later helped to design the atomic reactor for the first nuclear powered submarine. Carolyn Parker, physicist, worked from 1943 to 1947 on the Dayton Project at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The Monsanto Chemical Company led top-secret research work on the use of polonium and beryllium for the "Urchin" initiator used in the implosion design for Fat Man. Parker is believed to have worked with polonium on the development of Urchin: she died of leukemia at age 48. Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr. worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago beginning in 1944, As a physicist and mathematician, he worked immediately under Eugene Wigner, director of the Theoretical Physics group. The group's theoretical work provided the basis for the Hanford, Washington fission reactor. Wilkins was instrumental in resolving several issues related to reactor design and quantifying what are now known as "the Wilkins effect, and the Wigner-Wilkins and Wilkins spectra for thermal neutrons." The Wigner-Wilkins approach was used to calculate thermal neutron spectra and estimate the distribution of nuclear energy in reactors. Physicist Robert Johnson Omohundro used mass spectrometry to identify the elements in samples of materials. During World War II he was based in Arizona. He developed instruments to detect and measure radioactive materials and radiation emissions. Following the war, he worked at the Naval Research Laboratory, where he continued to develop and patent instruments for radiation detection. His technology was used by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in airports to detect fissionable material, and in portable neutron detectors. == Scientists and technicians by location ==

The legacy of the Manhattan Project is complex and emotionally difficult. Uranium-235 was used to create the Little Boy atomic bomb, which was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Plutonium and polonium were used in the Fat Man bomb, which was detonated over Nagasaki. He and others questioned whether the Allies were fighting a "racial war" when they used the bomb against the Japanese but not against Europeans. As a Ph.D. student, Samuel P. Massie was faced with the choice of being drafted to the front lines, or working on the Manhattan Project. He did not talk about his involvement in the Manhattan Project later beyond saying “All of us had to make a decision how we would serve the war efforts. I dropped out of school and went into the chemical warfare service with Dr. Gilman at Ames.” == References ==