Sunday, April 27, 2014

Black Teenage Gospel-Mime artist Jonathan Cooper performs Happy (Tasha Cobbs).

Teenage Gospel Mime artist Jonathan Cooper performs Happy sung by Tasha Cobbs for the 2014 Omega Talent Hunt sponsored by the Gamma Xi and Tau Lambda chapters of Omega Psi Phi (http://omegatalenthunt.blogspot.com/). Jonathan was the second place $300 winner of the competition.
 

Thursday, April 24, 2014

GLOBALAFRICANPRESENCE - What B.R. Ambedkar Wrote to W.E.B. Du Bois


  http://www.saadigitalarchive.org/tides/article/20140422-3553

What B.R. Ambedkar Wrote to W.E.B. Du Bois

APRIL 22, 2014

In 1913, B.R. Ambedkar arrived from Bombay to New York City at the age of twenty-two, on a scholarship to attend Columbia University that Fall and pursue an M.A. in Economics. After returning to India (not before completing a Ph.D. in London), Ambedkar would go on to become the most influential Dalit leader in India in the 20th century, the chairman of the constituent assembly that drafted the Indian constitution, and one of the most incisive theorists of caste and greatest intellectuals of modern India. From the perspective of a researcher, Dr. Ambedkar's proximity to Harlem during his years of study at Columbia has always raised several questions about his experience in the U.S. How might have his experiences in New York impacted his thinking? Aside from his influential mentors at the University (John Dewey, Edwin Seligman, James Shotwell, and James Harvey), who were his personal acquaintances in the U.S.? And did his experience witnessing anti-Black racism in America influence his thinking on the caste question in India? Despite the many allusions to race in the U.S. in his oeuvre, Ambedkar -- as far as I know -- left no first hand account of his time in New York to answer such questions.

An interesting record appears in the papers of W.E.B. Du Bois, the prominent African American intellectual and activist, whose archive is housed at the University of Massachusetts. In the 1940s, Ambedkar contacted Du Bois to inquire about the National Negro Congress petition to the U.N., which attempted to secure minority rights through the U.N. council. In a letter dated July 31, 1946, Du Bois responded by telling Ambedkar he was familiar with his name, and that he had "every sympathy with the Untouchables of India."

As other commentators have pointed out, Du Bois had long been fascinated with India's role as a harbinger of anticolonialism.1 He had befriended Indian "Home Rule League" nationalist Lajpat Rai, during the latter's exile in the U.S. between 1914 and 1919. Du Bois' interest in India turned up in editorials of the N.A.A.C.P.-issued magazine The Crisis over the decades, as well as the novel Dark Princess published in 1928. For Du Bois, the cause for Indian independence was one facet of a larger movement to undo the color line that belted the world. Du Bois' correspondence with Ambedkar, however, does not appear to extend beyond this letter.2

The analogy between the caste system and racism in the U.S., on the other hand, has a much longer and sustained history. In 1873, Jotirao Phule, an important social reformer in Maharashtra, began his polemicalGulamgiri (Slavery) with a dedication to American abolitionists "in an earnest desire that my countrymen may take their example as their guide in the emancipation of their Sudra Brethren from the trammels of Brahmin thralldom."3 Nearly a hundred years later, an organization led by Dalit artists and activists named themselves the "Dalit Panther," in reference to the Black Panthers in the U.S. In their manifesto, issued in 1971, the Panthers wrote: "From the Black Panthers, Black Power was established. We claim a close relationship with this struggle."4

In honor of Dalit history month this April, we wanted to highlight this brief but important historical exchange in the archives between two important leaders in the global struggle against the systems of racism and caste. 

[Special thanks to Professor Gary Tartakov for scanning and sharing these documents, and Robert Cox of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for allowing us to post them.]

1. Several books have highlighted this history, including most recently Gerald Horne's End of Empires(2008), Dohra Ahmad's Landscapes of Hope (2009), and Nico Slate's Colored Cosmopolitanism (2012).
2. For further reading on the Ambedkar-Du Bois correspondence, see Kapoor, S.D. "B.R. Ambedkar, W.E.B. Du Bois and the Process of Liberation" Economic and Political Weekly 38.51-52 (2003): 5344-5349, and Immerwahr, Daniel. "Caste or Colony? Indianizing Race in the United States" Modern Intellectual History4.2. (2007): 275-301.
3. Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 26.
4. Limbale, Sharankumar. Dalit Panthar. Pune: Sugava Prakashan, 1989. 260. 

Manan Desai teaches at Syracuse University and serves on the Board of Directors for the South Asian American Digital Archive.



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iLe Nago's Monthly Sunday Fellowship 4/27/2014 Hampton Virginia

Blessings and Greetings,
Please note that we will be gathering at Ile Nago on Sunday, April 27 at 2pm for our "Monthly Sunday Fellowship".

Sunday Fellowship is Ile Nago's monthly community gathering where we greet and honor the Ancestors and the Orisha and then openly share and discuss learnings about spirit and our traditions. This is a learning group where we can actively grow and build community.

Afterwards, we socialize by sharing a meal over casual conversation and laughter. This fellowship lasts into the evening.

***Please bring a dish or drink to share if you are able.
 
All of good faith and intention are welcome. You are welcome to bring a friend.

RSVP is not necessary but is appreciated.

Members of the Ile donate a monthly derecho of $10 for the Ile maintenance, supplies, upkeep, and event planning. Friends and Guests of the Ile are asked to consider donating a derecho when they attend an Ile event.

2108 Shell Road, Hampton, VA 23661
 
Consider Joining the Ile Nago Facebook Page:
 
For updated information about the upcoming Fellowship, RSVP on Facebook:
 

Sunday, April 20, 2014

A new ancestor - Cheo Feliciano - Rest in Paradise - Ashee, ashee, ashee

RIP Cheo Feliciano

FELICIANO-116


Afro-Puerto Rican super-sonero Jose Cheo Feliciano passed away on April 17, 2014 in a fatal car accident. He was 78. He was born in Ponce, PR in 1936, but moved to New York with his family at age 17. It was there that he became known as a singer, coming up with the Tito Rodriguez Orchestra, finding his voice with the Joe Cuba Sextet, and gaining worldwide fame with the Fania Allstars. Below is a link to six of his biggest hits; although only one is composed by Cheo, they are among his musical calling cards and will remain in the canon from now until salsa music loses relevance, which will hopefully be never.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Brother Seko is graduating. 5/2/2014 Party with an Uplifting Purpose in the 757

 Brother Seko of OurBlackImprovement, The Black Improvement Movement, The Conscious Community Newsletters, and formerly with The Imani Foundation, and most known for his family's Kwanzaa celebrations, is obtaining his Masters and wishes to support the Homeless Families at The Dwelling Place Family Shelter in Norfolk, Virginia. Party with him, and some of his Omega line brothers from 1994 on May 2nd, at 9:00 pm at the Black Owned and operated Restaurant Deja Blu (Between 19th & 20th on Atlantic Avenue) on the Va. Beach, Ocean Front in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Entry is $5. Bring clothing donations to benefit the Dwelling Place Homeless Shelter. Seko Used to work at the Dwelling Place, and it is one of the few family homeless shelters where fathers can reside with their families in Hampton Roads. Come and party with he and his family.
OurBlackImprovement:
https://www.youtube.com/user/OurBlackImprovement

African Influences on Fraternities, Sororities, and Masonry

http://youtu.be/gLq7JfAig9w  Lecturer Seko Varner speaks to students at Norfolk State University in 1997 about his research on the African Origins of Frats & Sorors. This event was sponsored by the men of Alpha Phi Alpha from Norfolk State University. This is a speech originally developed for Seko's fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, in 1994 for an Achievement Week Lecture. This video includes links to the few rebuttals of the lecture.


Black Improvement:
https://www.facebook.com/OurBlackImprovement

Sunday, April 13, 2014

3 forms of African Martial Arts: Keepers of tradition? Which tradition?

Kamau wrote:
 
     There are three forms of African martial arts: 1) traditional continental arts--these emerge from specific cultural and historical contexts on the African continent and include Laam (Senegalese wrestling), Zulu stick-fighting, Nuba wrestling, etc.; 2) traditional diasporic arts--these generally originated in Africa and have been sustained outside of Africa such as Capoeira, Kalenda, Knockin' and Kickin', etc.; and 3) non-traditional arts--these include arts that Africans have created or modified, imbuing them with kinesthetic, ethical, or tactical components emerging from the experience of diasporic African communities and include Kupigana Ngumi and similar arts.

     Should these three be equally valued in our efforts to preserve and refine our cultural expressions? Or should we prioritize the preservation of certain combat modalities over others?

Visit my website to learn about my research and teaching: www.kamaurashid.com

Harakati za Waasi Martia Arts--Chinese and African Martial Arts: www.hzwmartialarts.com

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom" - Malcolm X
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Friday, April 11, 2014

Happy Born Day Ancestor Percy Lavon Julian

Percy Lavon Julian (April 11, 1899 – April 19, 1975) was a U.S. research chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants.[1] He was the first to synthesize the natural product physostigmine, and a pioneer in the industrial large-scale chemical synthesis of the human hormones progesterone and testosterone from plant sterols such as stigmasterol and sitosterol. His work laid the foundation for the steroid drug industry's production of cortisone, other corticosteroids, and birth control pills.[2][3][4][5]
He later started his own company to synthesize steroid intermediates from the Mexican wild yam. His work helped greatly reduce the cost of steroid intermediates to large multinational pharmaceutical companies, helping to significantly expand the use of several important drugs.[6][7]
Julian received more than 130 chemical patents. He was one of the first African-Americans to receive a doctorate in chemistry. He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the second African-American scientist inducted (behind David Blackwell) from any field.[6]

Percy Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama as the first child of six born to James Sumner Julian and Elizabeth Lena Julian, née Adams. Both of his parents were graduates of what was to be Alabama State University. His father, James, whose own father had been a slave, was employed as a clerk in the Railway Service of the United States Post Office, while his mother, Elizabeth, worked as a schoolteacher.[8][9][10] Percy Julian grew up in the time of racist Jim Crow culture and legal regime in the southern United States. Among his childhood memories was finding a lynched man hanged from a tree while walking in the woods near his home. At a time when access to an education beyond the eighth grade was extremely rare for African-Americans, Julian's parents steered all of their children toward higher education.
Julian attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The college accepted few African-American students. The segregated nature of the town forced social humiliations. Julian was not allowed to live in the college dormitories and first stayed in an off-campus boarding home, which refused to serve him meals. It took him days before Julian found an establishment where he could eat. He later found work firing the furnace, waiting tables, and doing other odd jobs in a fraternity house; in return, he was allowed to sleep in the attic and eat at the house. Julian graduated from DePauw in 1920 Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian.[11] By 1930 Julian's father would move the entire family to Greencastle so that all his children could attend college at DePauw. The father was still working as a railroad postal clerk.[8]
After graduating from DePauw, Julian wanted to obtain his doctorate in chemistry, but learned it would be difficult for an African-American. Instead he obtained a position as a chemistry instructor at Fisk University. In 1923 he received an Austin Fellowship in Chemistry, which allowed him to attend Harvard University to obtain his M.S. However, worried that white American students would resent being taught by an African-American, Harvard withdrew Julian's teaching assistantship, making it impossible for him to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard.
In 1929, while an instructor at Howard University, Julian received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to continue his graduate work at the University of Vienna, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1931. He studied under Ernst Späth and was considered an impressive student. In Europe, he found freedom from the racial prejudices that had nearly stifled him in the States. He freely participated in intellectual social gatherings, went to the opera and found greater acceptance among his peers.[12][13] Julian was one of the first African-Americans to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry, after St. Elmo Brady and Edward M. A. Chandler.[6][14]
After returning from Vienna, Julian taught for one year at Howard University, where he met his future wife, Anna Roselle Johnson (Ph.D. in Sociology, 1937, University of Pennsylvania). They married on December 24, 1935 and had two children: Percy Lavon Julian, Jr. (August 31, 1940 – February 24, 2008), who became a prestigious civil rights lawyer in Madison, Wisconsin;[15] and Faith Roselle Julian (1944– ), who still resides in their Oak Park home and often makes inspirational speeches about her father and his contributions to science.[11]
At Howard, Julian became involved in university politics, setting off an embarrassing chain of events. At the university president's request, he goaded a white chemist named Jacob Shohan into resigning. Shohan retaliated by releasing to the local African-American newspaper the letters Julian had written to him from Vienna. The letters contained accounts of Julian's sex life and criticism of individual Howard faculty members. Then Julian's laboratory assistant, Robert Thompson, charged he had discovered his wife together with Julian in a sexual tryst. When Thompson was fired for filing a lawsuit against the University, he too gave the paper racy letters which Julian had written to him from Vienna. Through the summer of 1932, the Baltimore Afro-American published all of Julian's letters. Eventually, the scandal and accompanying pressure forced Julian to resign. He lost his position and everything he had worked for.[6]
At the lowest point in Julian's career, his former mentor, William Blanchard, threw him a much-needed lifeline. Blanchard offered Julian a position to teach organic chemistry at DePauw University in 1932. Julian then helped Josef Pikl, a fellow student at the University of Vienna, to come to the United States to work with him at DePauw. In 1935 Julian and Pikl completed the total synthesis of physostigmine and confirmed the structural formula assigned to it. Robert Robinson of Oxford University in the U.K. had been the first to publish a synthesis of physostigmine, but Julian noticed that the melting point of Robinson's end product was wrong, indicating that he had not created it. When Julian completed his synthesis, the melting point matched the correct one for natural physostigmine from the calabar bean.[6]
Julian also extracted stigmasterol, which took its name from Physostigma venenosum, the west African calabar bean that he hoped could serve as raw material for synthesis of human steroidal hormones. At about this time, in 1934, Butenandt and Fernholz, in Germany,[16][17] had shown that stigmasterol, isolated from soybean oil, could be converted to progesterone by synthetic organic chemistry.

Private sector work: Glidden[edit]

In 1936 Julian was denied a professorship at DePauw for racial reasons. DePauw had offered a job to fellow chemist Josef Pikl but declined to hire Julian, despite his superlative qualifications as an organic chemist, apologizing that they were "unaware he was a Negro".[18] Julian next applied for a job at the Institute of Paper Chemistry (IPC) in Wisconsin. However, the Wisconsin city of Appleton, where the institute was located, was a sundown town, forbidding African-Americans from staying overnight, stating directly "No Negro should be bed or boarded overnight in Appleton."
Meanwhile Julian had written to the Glidden Company, a supplier of soybean oil products, to request a five-gallon sample of the oil to use as his starting point for the synthesis of human steroidal sex hormones (in part because his wife was suffering from infertility).[3] After receiving the request, W.J. O'Brien, a vice-president at Glidden, made a telephone call to Julian, offering him the position of director of research at Glidden's Soya Products Division in Chicago. He was very likely offered the job by O'Brien because he was fluent in German, and Glidden had just purchased a modern continuous countercurrent solvent extraction plant from Germany for the extraction of vegetable oil from soybeans for paints and other uses.[6]
Julian supervised the assembly of the plant at Glidden when he arrived in 1936. He then designed and supervised construction of the world's first plant for the production of industrial-grade, isolated soy protein from oil-free soybean meal. Isolated soy protein could replace the more expensive milk casein in industrial applications such as coating and sizing of paper, glue for making Douglas fir plywood, and in the manufacture of water-based paints.
At the start of World War II, Glidden sent a sample of Julian's isolated soy protein to National Foam System Inc. (today a unit of Kidde Fire Fighting), which used it to develop Aer-O-Foam,[19][20] the U.S. Navy's beloved fire-fighting "bean soup." While it was not exactly Julian's brainchild, his meticulous care in the preparation of the soy protein made the fire fighting foam possible. When a hydrolyzate of isolated soy protein was fed into a water stream, the mixture was converted into a foam by means of an aerating nozzle. The soy protein foam was used to smother oil and gasoline fires aboard ships and was particularly useful on aircraft carriers. It saved the lives of thousands of sailors.[20] Citing this achievement, in 1947 the NAACP awarded Julian the Spingarn Medal, its highest honor.

Steroids[edit]

Julian's research at Glidden changed direction in 1940 when he began work on synthesizing progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone from the plant sterols stigmasterol and sitosterol, isolated from soybean oil by a foam technique he invented and patented.[2][3][21] At that time clinicians were discovering many uses for the newly discovered hormones. However, only minute quantities could be extracted from hundreds of pounds of the spinal cords of animals.
In 1940 Julian was able to produce 100 lb of mixed soy sterols daily, which had a value of $10,000 in sex hormones. Julian was soon ozonizing 100 pounds daily of mixed sterol dibromides. The soy stigmasterol was easily converted into commercial quantities of the female hormone progesterone, and the first pound of progesterone he made, valued at $63,500, was shipped to the buyer in an armored car.[5] Production of other sex hormones soon followed.[22]
His work made possible the production of these hormones on a larger industrial scale, with the potential of reducing the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies. Julian and his co-workers obtained patents for Glidden on key processes for the preparation of progesterone and testosterone from soybean plant sterols. Product patents held by a former cartel of European pharmaceutical companies had prevented a significant reduction in wholesale and retail prices for clinical use of these hormones in the 1940s.[23][24][25]
On April 13, 1949, rheumatologist Philip Hench at the Mayo Clinic announced the dramatic effectiveness of cortisone in treating rheumatoid arthritis. The cortisone was produced by Merck at great expense using a complex 36-step synthesis developed by chemist Lewis Sarett, starting with deoxycholic acid from cattle bile acids. On September 30, 1949, Julian announced an improvement in the process of producing cortisone.[26][27][28][29] This eliminated the need to use osmium tetroxide, which was a rare and expensive chemical.[26] By 1950, Glidden could begin producing closely related compounds which might have partial cortisone activity. Julian also announced the synthesis, starting with the cheap and readily available pregnenolone (synthesized from the soybean oil sterol stigmasterol) of the steroid cortexolone (also known as Reichstein's Substance S), a molecule that differed from cortisone by a single missing oxygen atom; and possibly 17α-hydroxyprogesterone and pregnenetriolone, which he hoped might also be effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis,[26][27][28][29][30] but unfortunately they were not.[29]
On April 5, 1952, biochemist Durey Peterson and microbiologist Herbert Murray at Upjohn published the first report of a fermentation process for the microbial 11α-oxygenation of steroids in a single step (by common molds of the order Mucorales). Their fermentation process could produce 11α-hydroxyprogesterone or 11α-hydroxycortisone from progesterone or Compound S, respectively, which could then by further chemical steps be converted to cortisone or 11β-hydroxycortisone (cortisol).[31]
After two years, Glidden abandoned production of cortisone to concentrate on Substance S. Julian developed a multistep process for conversion of pregnenolone, available in abundance from soybean oil sterols, to cortexolone. In 1952, Glidden, which had been producing progesterone and other steroids from soybean oil, shut down its own production and began importing them from Mexico through an arrangement with Diosynth (a small Mexican company founded in 1947 by Russell Marker after leaving Syntex). Glidden's cost of production of cortexolone was relatively high, so Upjohn decided to use progesterone, available in large quantity at low cost from Syntex, to produce cortisone and hydrocortisone.[29]
In 1953, Glidden decided to leave the steroid business, which had been relatively unprofitable over the years despite Julian's innovative work.[32] On December 1, 1953, Julian left Glidden after 18 years, giving up a salary of nearly $50,000 a year (approximately $400,000 in 2014 dollars), to found his own company, Julian Laboratories, Inc., taking over the small, concrete-block building of Suburban Chemical Company in Franklin Park, Illinois.[33][34]
On December 2, 1953, Pfizer acquired exclusive licenses of Glidden patents for the synthesis of Substance S. Pfizer had developed a fermentation process for microbial 11β-oxygenation of steroids in a single step that could convert Substance S directly to 11β-hydrocortisone (cortisol), with Syntex undertaking large-scale production of cortexolone at very low cost.[29]

Oak Park and Julian Laboratories[edit]

In about 1950 Julian moved his family to the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, where the Julians were the first African-American family.[35] Although some residents welcomed them into the community, there was also opposition. Before they even moved in, on Thanksgiving Day, 1950, their home was fire-bombed. Later, after they moved in, the house was attacked with dynamite on June 12, 1951. The attacks galvanized the community, and a community group was formed to support the Julians.[36] Julian's son later recounted that during these times, he and his father often kept watch over the family's property by sitting in a tree with a shotgun.[6]
In 1953, Julian founded his own research firm, Julian Laboratories, Inc. He brought many of his best chemists, including African-Americans and women, from Glidden to his own company. Julian won a contract to provide Upjohn with $2 million worth of progesterone. To compete against Syntex, he would have to use the same Mexican yam as his starting material. Julian used his own money and borrowed from friends to build a processing plant in Mexico, but he could not get a permit from the government to harvest the yams. Abraham Zlotnik, a former Jewish University of Vienna classmate whom Julian had helped escape from the Nazi European holocaust, led a search to find a new source of the yam in Guatemala for the company.
In July 1956, Julian and executives of two other American companies trying to enter the Mexican steroid intermediates market appeared before a U.S. Senate subcommittee. They testified that Syntex was using undue influence to monopolize access to the Mexican yam.[25][37] The hearings resulted in Syntex signing a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department. While it did not admit to restraining trade, it promised not to do so in the future.[25] Within five years, large American multinational pharmaceutical companies had acquired all six producers of steroid intermediates in Mexico, four of which had been Mexican-owned.[25]
Syntex reduced the cost of steroid intermediates more than 250-fold over twelve years, from $80 per gram in 1943 to $0.31 per gram in 1955.[25][37] Competition from Upjohn and General Mills, which had together made very substantial improvements in the production of progesterone from stigmasterol, forced the price of Mexican progesterone to less than $0.15 per gram in 1957. The price continued to fall, bottoming out at $0.08 per gram in 1968.[25][29]
In 1958, Upjohn purchased 6,900 kg of progesterone from Syntex at $0.135 per gram, 6,201 kg of progesterone from Searle (who had acquired Pesa) at $0.143 per gram, 5,150 kg of progesterone from Julian Laboratories at $0.14 per gram, and 1,925 kg of progesterone from General Mills (who had acquired Protex) at $0.142 per gram.[38]
Despite continually falling bulk prices of steroid intermediates, an oligopoly of large American multinational pharmaceutical companies kept the wholesale prices of corticosteroid drugs fixed and unchanged into the 1960s. Cortisone was fixed at $5.48 per gram from 1954, hydrocortisone at $7.99 per gram from 1954, and prednisone at $35.80 per gram from 1956.[25][38] Merck and Roussel Uclaf concentrated on improving the production of corticosteroids from cattle bile acids. In 1960 Roussel produced almost one-third of the world's corticosteroids from bile acids.[29]
Julian Laboratories chemists found a way to quadruple the yield on a product on which they were barely breaking even. Julian reduced their price for the product from $4,000 per kg to $400 per kg.[6] He sold the company in 1961 for $2.3 million.[39] The U.S. and Mexico facilities were purchased by Smith Kline, and Julian's chemical plant in Guatemala was purchased by Upjohn.
In 1964, Julian founded Julian Associates and Julian Research Institute, which he managed for the rest of his life.[40]

National Academy of Sciences[edit]

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973 in recognition of his scientific achievements.[6] He became the second African-American to be inducted, after David Blackwell.

Death[edit]

Julian died of liver cancer on April 19, 1975 in St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan, Illinois and was buried in Elm Lawn Cemetery in Elmhurst, Illinois.[9][41][42]

Legacy and honors[edit]

Nova documentary[edit]

Ruben Santiago-Hudson portrayed Percy Julian in the Public Broadcasting Service Nova documentary about his life, called Forgotten Genius. It was presented on the PBS network on February 6, 2007, with initial sponsorship by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and further funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Approximately sixty of Julian's family members, friends, and work associates were interviewed for the docudrama.[6][50]
Production on the biopic began at DePauw University's Greencastle campus in May 2002 and included video of Julian's bust on display in the atrium of the university's Percy Lavon Julian Science and Mathematics Center. Completion and broadcasting of the documentary program was delayed in order for Nova to commission and publish a matching book on Julian's life.[51]
According to University of Illinois historian James Anderson in the film, "His story is a story of great accomplishment, of heroic efforts and overcoming tremendous odds...a story about who we are and what we stand for and the challenges that have been there and the challenges that are still with us."[50]

Archive[edit]

The Percy Lavon Julian family papers are archived at DePauw University.[52]

Patents[edit]

Publications[edit]