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Classroom · Grades 6–12

Percy Julian

Percy Julian’s chemistry made important medicines cheaper and more widely available, and his career shows how racial exclusion shaped where, and how, scientific work got done.

Lesson at a Glance

Grades
Grades 6–12
Time
One class period (20–40 minutes)
Standards
NCSS Themes 8 (Science, Technology, and Society) and 2 (Time, Continuity, and Change); C3 D2.His.1, D2.His.14
Reading
Percy Julian (profile)

Big Idea

Percy Julian’s chemistry made important medicines cheaper and more widely available, and his career shows how racial exclusion shaped where, and how, scientific work got done.

Before Class

Students read the profile of Percy Julian, including the Key Dates and Sources.

Discussion Questions

  1. Julian’s professors told him there were no opportunities in graduate chemistry for a Black student. How did he find paths around that barrier, and what did it cost him?
  2. Why did turning soybean and yam sterols into hormones on an industrial scale matter to ordinary patients?
  3. Julian’s synthesis of physostigmine overturned a claim by a famous British chemist. What does that episode show about how science tests its own claims?
  4. In 1950 and 1951 the Julians’ new home in Oak Park was set on fire and then bombed. How does this complicate the idea that achievement protects people from discrimination?
  5. Much of Julian’s best research was done in industry rather than at a university. Was that a loss, a gain, or both?

Activity

Draw a two-column timeline on the board: one column for Julian’s scientific milestones (DePauw, Fisk, Harvard, Vienna, physostigmine, Glidden, cortisone intermediates) and one for the barriers he met (the eighth-grade limit on Black public schooling in Alabama, exclusion from Harvard’s doctoral program and faculty, the Oak Park attacks). Pairs use the profile and the ACS landmark booklet to place events in both columns and draw arrows wherever a barrier redirected his career. Each pair then writes three sentences answering: how might the history of steroid medicine have been different if a major university had hired Julian in 1923? (30–40 minutes.)

Primary Sources

Cite this page
MLA
“Classroom lesson: Percy Julian.” Black-History.com, 30 Sept. 2026, https://black-history.com/classroom/percy-julian/.
APA
Black-History.com Editors. (2026, September 30). Classroom lesson: Percy Julian. Black-History.com. https://black-history.com/classroom/percy-julian/
Chicago
Black-History.com Editors. “Classroom lesson: Percy Julian.” Black-History.com. September 30, 2026. https://black-history.com/classroom/percy-julian/.
Editorial Note

By the Black-History.com editors. Last reviewed 30 September 2026. To suggest a primary source or a correction, write to editors@black-history.com or use our corrections form.

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