His house was destroyed by a Molotov cocktail. On the eve of the Great Depression, he lost his job. Inheriting a deep-seated and passionate interest in the scientific establishment, he overcame numerous obstacles to become a world-class chemist, self-made millionaire, and philanthropist. But despite its success, Percy Julian’s story remains largely unknown.
The grandson of slaves in Alabama, Julian broke the color barrier in American academia more than a decade before Jackie Robinson played baseball. A brilliant innovator, he discovered a way to convert soybeans into synthetic steroids on an industrial scale, helping millions of people access drugs like cortisone.
Although he encountered the same racial barriers that all black scientists of his generation faced, Julian overcame them more successfully than any other African American in the first half of the 20th century.
In a special two-hour lecture, “The Forgotten Genius,” starring Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson, NOVA brings Julian’s scientific breakthroughs and riveting biography to life, based on newly opened family archives and dozens of reviews. Interviews with several colleagues vividly reproduce this period dominated by relatives.
