Blackwell, David Harold – Famed Mathematician
By
John C Abercrombie
David Harold Blackwell was a distinguished mathematician. As a child he grew up during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights Era. He lived a life that was inspiring despite the challenges. Born in Southern Illinois, he dreamed of becoming an elementary school teacher and by the end of his life he held twelve honorary Doctorate degrees, and was the winner of numerous awards, honors, and leadership roles.
Blackwell was born April 24, 1919, in Centralia, Illinois. The oldest of four children, his mother Mabel Johnson Blackwell was a full-time homemaker and his father Grover Blackwell worked on the Illinois Central Railroad. He grew up in an integrated neighborhood and attended integrated schools. A brilliant student, he was promoted beyond his grade level twice during elementary school, allowing him to graduate from high school at the age of sixteen.
Blackwell was accepted into the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, intent on studying mathematics and becoming a teacher. He graduated in three years and a year later, in 1939 he received his master’s degree.
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He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics in 1941 at the age of twenty-two. His doctoral advisor was Joseph L. Doob. At the time, Blackwell was the seventh African American to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics in the United States and the first at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His doctoral thesis was on Markov chains.
David Harold Blackwell made significant contributions to game theory, probability theory, information theory, and statistics. He is one of the eponyms of a person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc., is named or thought to be named. Also, a name or noun formed after a person) of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. He was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, the first African American tenured faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, and the seventh African American to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics. In 2012, President Obama posthumously awarded Blackwell the National Medal of Science.
Blackwell was also a pioneer in textbook writing. He wrote one of the first Bayesian statistics textbooks, his 1969 Basic Statistics. Bayesian statistics is a theory based on the Bayesian interpretation of probability where probability expresses a degree of belief in an event. It may be based on prior knowledge about the event including previous experiments or personal beliefs. This differs from other interpretations of probability such as frequentist interpretation that views probability as the limit of the relative frequency of an event.
College was not a financial cakewalk for Blackwell. Although he was awarded a four-year scholarship, he worked as a dishwasher, waiter, and a laboratory cleaner to spare his family of the financial burden of his education. During his senior year he decided to pursue a graduate degree after setting his sights on teaching in higher education. In 1941, he earned his Doctorate degree. While finances were a hurdle for most Blacks due to the inability to capture the benefits of home ownership, low wages even when qualified for higher paying jobs, the system forced this hurdle in the way of Blacks. While Blackwell was fortunate to be able to attend school and work, many found themselves in straights where they did not have the luxury of being able to attend school at the same time and had to work immediately to have a roof over their head and a bit of food in their stomachs.
Even with these sacrifices, Blackwell was fortunate to have an illustrious career as an educator, researcher, and statistician. Despite his accomplishments, race continued to be a factor.
The guidance of Professor Doob helped Blackwell secure the Rosenwald Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS). At that time, it was customary for IAS members to receive visiting fellow appointments from the nearby Princeton University. However, due to racial discrimination, Princeton objected to Blackwell’s appointment and would not allow him to attend lectures or conduct research at the university. The president of Princeton even got involved in the controversy as they felt the IAS was abusing the university’s hospitality by admitting a Black man. The university later withdrew their objection upon the insistence of the IAS director and his thesis advisor, Joseph Doob to allow Blackwell to maintain his fellow and courtesy title of assistant professor Blackwell would remain unaware of the internal struggles between Princeton and the IAS for many years. He finished his first year at the IAS making connections that would lead to a lifetime of groundbreaking contributions to the world of statistics.
Incidents like this happen much more than one would suspect with most of them not seeing the light of day. A horrible reality of American racial attitudes.
While working at the IAS, Blackwell collaborated with John von Neumann, considered the father of modern game theory. Von Neumann had requested a meeting with Blackwell to discuss his college dissertation, but Blackwell wrote off the renowned mathematician’s request. Naively, he did not believe von Neumann was genuinely interested in mentoring students or hearing about his dissertation. During this time of avoiding a meeting with von Neumann, Blackwell would audit a course taught by world-renowned mathematician, Samuel Wilks. Known for his work in developing the field of mathematical statistics, Wilks would be a founding member of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). Eventually, Blackwell would follow through on von Neumann’s request for a meeting to sit down and discuss his thesis on Markov Chains.
After leaving the IAS, Blackwell applied for faculty positions across the country, expecting only to get offers from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. After 105 applications to HBCUs, only three offers came in 1942, Blackwell began his educator career at Southern University at Baton Rouge, Louisiana from 1942-43 and followed by a year at Clark College in Atlanta, GA from 1943-44. Blackwell had hoped to get an offer from UC-Berkeley in 1942, but the offer never came in 1944, Blackwell secured a position at Howard University in Washington D.C. He remained there for the following 10 years until 1954. Starting his career at Howard University as an Assistant Professor, by 1947 Blackwell would have the position of Professor and Chairperson of the Mathematics Department.
Nineteen fifty-four would be a pivotal year for Blackwell. It was this year that Blackwell’s friendship with Girshick culminated with them releasing their collaborated efforts in the form of the now classic book, Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions. Their book explored statistical evaluating procedures through decisions and game theory. It was also in 1954 that Blackwell accepted a position as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. At the International Congress of Mathematicians in Amsterdam during 1954, Blackwell gave an invited talk on probability that led to UC-Berkeley’s interest in hiring Blackwell.
Blackwell had previously interviewed at UC-Berkeley back in 1942 but did not secure a position under the guise of the department wanting to hire a woman due to wartime efforts Blackwell would later in his career find out the then head of the math department’s wife protested Blackwell’s hiring. It was customary to host faculty members in their home and the wife objected to hosting a Black man in her house. This shows how deeply racism is embedded into our society. It is necessary to recognize the deep-seated and miseducated profound effects that are embedded in so many of our laws and practices.
“– was not going to have that darky in her house,” – Blackwell recalled what he learned years later of what the wife of the UC-Berkeley’s Mathematics Department Head told her husband upon hearing about Blackwell being hired in 1942. This shows the extent of racial prejudice and its harmful legacy. So having a Black distinguished mathematician in her house was so distasteful that it is hard to believe, but it happened and continues in many ways today.
As the Civil Rights era began to unfold in the United States, Blackwell began his tenure at UC-Berkeley, where he befriended Dr. Jerzy Neyman, the Mathematics Department Chair who interviewed him twelve years prior. Headed up by Neyman, the Statistics Laboratory separated from the Mathematics Department in 1955. It was also in 1955 that Blackwell received a promotion to full professorship in the newly formed Statistics Department. By 1956, Blackwell became Chair of the UC-Berkeley Statistics Department. Blackwell served as Chair of the Statistics Department until 1961 and continued his career at Berkeley until his retirement in 1988. Between 1964 and 1975, Blackwell served in various roles while still maintaining his research and teaching fulltime. From 1964-68, Blackwell served as the Assistant Dean of the College of Letters and Science and from 1973-75 served as Director of the University of California Study Center for the United Kingdom and Ireland.
By the time he retired, he had published over ninety papers and books on dynamic programming, game theory, and mathematical statistics.
You have just read a summary of David Harold Blackwell a great Black mathematician. Many students are studying his work today. The purpose of the blogs on this site are to show a full accounting of Black life in America. While it is good to be exposed to this information, there is much more on here that allows you to dig deeper and get a clearer understanding, using videos and books. There are five videos accompanying this article and books related.
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David Harold Blackwell
The Story of: David Blackwell | Stories in STEAM | Storytime!
Join us for Storytime! as we learn the story of David Blackwell. A genius mathematician that contributedgreatly to the field of statistics. Throughout his career he broke many barriers and contributed to many branches of applied mathematics including Game Theory!
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Book
To sample the book, click the icon.
Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions (Dover Books on Mathematics)
Evaluating statistical procedures through decision and game theory, as first proposed by Neyman and Pearson and extended by Wald, is the goal of this problem-oriented text in mathematical statistics. First-year graduate students in statistics and other students with a background in statistical theory and advanced calculus will find a rigorous, thorough presentation of statistical decision theory treated as a special case of game theory.
The work of Borel, von Neumann, and Morgenstern in game theory, of prime importance to decision theory, is covered in its relevant aspects: reduction of games to normal forms, the minimax theorem, and the utility theorem. With this introduction, Blackwell and Professor Girshick look at: Values and Optimal Strategies in Games; General Structure of Statistical Games; Utility and Principles of Choice; Classes of Optimal Strategies; Fixed Sample-Size Games with Finite Ω and with Finite A; Sufficient Statistics and the Invariance Principle; Sequential Games; Bayes and Minimax Sequential Procedures; Estimation; and Comparison of Experiments.
A few topics not directly applicable to statistics, such as perfect information theory, are also discussed. Prerequisites for full understanding of the procedures in this book include knowledge of elementary analysis, and some familiarity with matrices, determinants, and linear dependence. For purposes of formal development, only discrete distributions are used, though continuous distributions are employed as illustrations.
The number and variety of problems presented will be welcomed by all students, computer experts, and others using statistics and game theory. This comprehensive and sophisticated introduction remains one of the strongest and most useful approaches to a field which today touches areas as diverse as gambling and particle physics.
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David Harold Blackwell Summer Research Institute |
Interview with Jelani Nelson
Established with the aim of increasing the participation of African American students in the mathematical sciences, the David Harold Blackwell Summer Research Institute will host its first cohort of undergraduate researchers in Summer 2021.
We sat down with Simons Institute Senior Advisor Jelani Nelson, one of the leaders of this new initiative, for a wide-ranging conversation that touched on the genesis of the initiative, network effects in career trajectories, and strategies for broadening participation in the mathematical sciences.
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Book
Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence
An in-depth look at the lives, experiences, and professional careers of Black mathematicians in the United States.
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David Blackwell – 2012 National Medal of Science
For fundamental contributions to probability theory, mathematical statistics, information theory, mathematical logic, and Blackwell games, which have had a lasting impact on critical endeavors such as drug testing, computer communications, and manufacturing.
Produced by Evolving Communications for the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation with support from Genentech.
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Book
Benjamin Banneker Scientist and Mathematician (Black Americans of Achievement)
A biography of the black tobacco farmer who taught himself math, astronomy, and clockmaking, became famous for his almanacs, and assisted in the original survey of Washington, D.C
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Remembering David Blackwell
A memorial tribute to Professor David Blackwell, a Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Video Produced by Doug Ramsey for the 2011 Information Theory and Applications Workshop at UC San Diego.
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Book
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
The phenomenal true story of the Black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Now a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner.
Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets and astronauts into space.
Among these problem solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly these overlooked math whizzes had shots at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia, and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.
Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-Black West Computing group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and complete domination of the heavens.
Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the space race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades as they faced challenges, forged alliances, and used their intellects to change their own lives – and their country’s future.
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David Blackwell: A Profile of Inspiration
David H. Blackwell had a distinguished career and a life full of tremendous perseverance and inspiration. This is the legacy he left behind…
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The great hoax is the misinformation presented by historians who omit any positive information about Black excellence and at the same time allow the existence of negative information to flourish. Early movies featured inferior Negroes entertaining the White owners or other White people in superior roles. This perception enforced the theory that Blacks were inferior to Whites while the truth is that given the opportunity, they excelled. Blacks had skills and intelligence before being forced to the Americas. They had great civilizations.
The less intelligent among us that want teaching about great accomplishments, embarrassing less than civilized retaliations against American Black citizens is not the way to solve anything. It only leads to misleading falsehoods that have no place in civilized society. It is time that we face the facts, have honest discussions, and solve the problem.
No matter what your ancestors did, the time to leave those actions in the past is now.