Dr. David Harold Blackwell (1919-)

Dr. David Harold Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919 in Centralia, Illinois. During his school years, Blackwell admittedly did not care for algebra and trigonometry but fell in love with geometry. He excelled at school and at the age of 16 enrolled at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign with the intention of becoming an elementary school teacher. Dr. Blackwell earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1938, Master of Arts in Mathematics in 1939, and his Ph.D. in 1941 all from the University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign. He became the seventh African American to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics. Dr. Blackwell was appointed a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in1941 for a year. After his year at the Institute, he applied to all 105 black colleges in the country. He was offered a post at Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA in 1942-43 followed by a year of instructorship at Clark College, which is presently known as Clark- Atlanta University. In 1944 he joined the faculty of Howard University and within three years had risen to Full Professor and Chairman of the Mathematics Department. During his time at Howard University, he published a substantial amount of research and was a Visiting Professor of Statistics at Stanford University in 1950-51.

Dr. Blackwell was always looking for others interested in Mathematics in the Washington area which occasioned a meeting with M.A. Girschick of the Department of Agriculture. Girschick’s lectures sparked Dr. Blackwell’s interest in statistics and the two subsequently collaborated on many works including their 1954 book Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions. 1954 proved to be an important year for Dr. Blackwell because it also concluded his stay at Howard University, during which time he had been the Chair of the Department of Mathematics and had published more than 20 papers. He also gave an invited address on probability at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Amsterdam in 1954 and was afterwards appointed Professor of Statistics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he Chaired the Statistics Department for many years. While at the University of California at Berkeley he published an additional 50 papers. In 1955 he was President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He is not unfamiliar with holding positions of importance and prestige as he has also served as Vice President of the American Statistical Association, the International Statistical Institute, the American Mathematical Society, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Dr. Blackwell became the first African American named to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965 and was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

During his life he has received honorary Doctorate of Science degrees from twelve institutions including: Harvard, Yale, University of Illinois, Howard University, Carnegie-Mellon, University of Southern California, Michigan State, Syracuse, Southern Illinois, University of Warwick, National University of Lesotho, and Amherst College. Dr. Blackwell’s life is marked with grand achievement and he is often revered as one of the greatest African American Mathematicians.