Please submit your answers to the Chair (aalh@omega10thdistrict.org). Make sure you give your full name and your chapter.
QUEst #1: I was an African American chemist who contributed to the science of food preservation. By the end of my career, I had amassed 59 United States patents, and a number of my inventions were also patented in other countries. I devoted much of my efforts to the technologies behind curing meat, particularly to improving a curing salt. I also invented new uses of antioxidants to prevent food spoilage, especially the onset of rancidity in fats and oils.
My grandmother arrived in Illinois via the “Underground Railroad” and my grandfather arrived in Chicago in 1837 and was one of the founders of the Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church.
I know I’m BLACK, but pass the salt. Who am I?
ANS: Lloyd A. Hall
Source: http://www.csupomona.edu/~nova/scientists/articles/hall.html | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Hall
QUEst #2: I am a medical researcher, war hero and political activist. I was born to former slaves in La Grange, Georgia. I earned a bachelor’s degree from Atlanta’s Clark University in 1911 and a medical degree from Harvard University Medical School in 1915. My activism began at Harvard where I missed three weeks of medical school to join NAACP picket lines protesting The Birth of a Nation. I returned to my studies and graduated fourth in my class in 1915.
I served in France as a physician and Captain in the U.S. Army in World War I. While there, I successfully implemented life-saving treatments. Upon my return to the United States I moved to New York City where in 1919 I became the first African American appointed to the surgical staff at Harlem Hospital. I began publication of the scholarly Harlem Hospital Bulletin and established the hospital’s medical library in 1934. I authored columns for the NAACP magazine Crisis, where I challenged the contention that biological factors caused African Americans to harbor more syphilis and infectious diseases than the general population.
I headed the team that first used Aureomycin and became an expert in the treatment of head injuries and introduced the intradermal method of vaccination. I also founded the cancer research center at Harlem Hospital known as the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation.
I fought for the rights of BLACK people and medically advanced them too! Who am I?
ANS: Louis T. Wright
QUEst #3: Founded in 1964, the White House Fellows program is one of America’s most prestigious programs for leadership and public service. White House Fellowships offer exceptional young men and women first-hand experience working at the highest levels of the federal government.
Selected individuals typically spend a year working as a full-time, paid Fellow to senior White House Staff, Cabinet Secretaries and other top-ranking government officials. Fellows also participate in an education program consisting of roundtable discussions with renowned leaders from the private and public sectors, and trips to study U.S. policy in action both domestically and internationally. Fellowships are awarded on a strictly non-partisan basis.
In 1974 I became the first black woman to be named a White House Fellow. Who am I?
ANS: Barbara W. Hancock
QUEst #4: In 1827, I was a co-founder of the first black newspaper. I was also a founder in 1833 of the Phoenix Society which provided assistance for impoverished black New Yorkers. I focused on the importance of education and personally financed and encouraged black girls and boys to continue their schooling
A quote from the first edition summed up a great many of the reasons for the continuing, vital existence of the black press.
“We wish to plead our own cause,” the editors wrote. “Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly.”
Omega men will you not speak up and confront the white man with the same vigor you use to silence your brother? Who am I?
ANS: Rev. Peter Williams, Jr.