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Piedmont Picnic Project seeks to build practical food skills through fun and interactive experiences that are rooted in regional traditions.

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Build practical food skills through fun and interactive experiences that are rooted in regional traditions.

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Happy belated equinox to all our spring beauties 💚🤍💖

Today, on the last day of #BlackHistoryMonth, the

Today, on the last day of #BlackHistoryMonth, the Black woman you should have learned about in school is Dr. Roger Arliner Young.

Dr. Young’s story is complicated and bittersweet. She had an amazing career in science, took a powerful stand for civil rights, and ultimately died a forgotten and troubled woman.

Young enrolled at Howard Univ. in 1916 as a music major and didn’t take her first science course until five years later. She happened to be noticed by the respected biology professor, Dr. Ernest Everett Just, who became her mentor. She graduated Howard with a BS and earned her Master’s from the Univ. of Chicago, all while teaching at Howard with Just.

In 1924, when she published an article in Science magazine, she was the first Black woman to conduct and publish research in her field. When she received her Ph.D. from the Univ. of Pennsylvania, she was the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in zoology.

While working at Howard, Young and Just’s relationship deteriorated and became openly hostile. After earning her Ph.D., she moved to NC in 1940 to better support her sick mother. First teaching at NC Central, Young then took the position of head of the Biology Department at Shaw Univ. in Raleigh.

At Shaw, Young participated with the active civil rights advocates on campus, including labor activists. Young traveled with the AFL during “Operation Dixie” to help the tobacco workers of eastern NC, mostly Black and female, unionize. On a Raleigh-to-Williamston bus in July 1946, she refused to give up her seat for a white rider. The bus was forced to stop in Nashville where she was questioned and possibly arrested.

After NC, she moved on to several short-term positions further west. Her mother died in 1953, escalating her mental health issues and leading her to seek treatment at the Mississippi State Mental Asylum. She died in 1964.

One of our mottoes at PPP is “know your roots.” After all, Black history IS American history, and it’s our present and future as well.

Photo credit: Marine Biological Laboratory Archives

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