By Ed Cobb, SIPS history committee chair
One notable example of Ezra Cornell’s “… any person … any study” vision is Thomas Wyatt Turner (1877-1978). Born in Maryland to a family of sharecroppers, Turner spoke often in his later years about the importance of education in overcoming the difficult circumstances of his childhood.
After earning a B.S. and M.A. from Howard University, he became acting Dean at Howard, taking summer leaves of absence to complete a Ph.D. at Cornell. In 1921, Turner became the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. in botany in the U.S.
At Cornell, Turner worked with the world-renowned plant physiologist, Otis Freeman Curtis. His thesis was on The physiological effects of salts in altering the ratio of top to root growth – a topic that resonates even today in terms of the consequences of climate change, ocean levels, and the sustainability of crops.
Turner was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and worked tirelessly to advance social justice for blacks and other minorities in the Catholic Church.
“Whether it was in NAACP circles, railroad and steamship discriminations, voting hindrances or [being barred from] church observance, I have found myself ever battling to remove the disagreeable obstacles which were in the path of the Negro citizen wherever he went,” Turner recalls in his biography, From Sharecropper to Scientist.
Turner became a professor of botany and the department head at the Hampton Institute, a historically black private college in southeast Virginia. Four of his students obtained advanced degrees from Cornell including John Carothers (Agriculture), Flemmie P. Kittrel (Home Economics), Charles Logan Cooper (Vocational Education) and Amanda Eunice Peele (Botany).
Turner died in 1978 at the age of 101.
