Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Creating Pathways (2025, 59 min.) is the second of two documentary films produced by Zala Films as part of the Journeys of Black Mathematicians project started in collaboration with the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath) in 2020.
Creating Pathways introduces new characters, highlighting the lives of Black pioneers in mathematics from the 20th century. It also examines the impact of segregation and prejudice on the lives and careers of individuals first featured in Forging Resilience. The film focuses on the stories of mathematicians who attended predominantly White institutions (PWIs), surveying a range of attitudes around identity, and on these scholars’ achievements in a variety of fields. Basic questions about the beauty and philosophical meanings of mathematics are explored as extensions of the personal journeys. In the final minutes, several programs aimed at increasing the number of African Americans in the STEM fields are documented.
Introductory comments cover a range of feelings about mathematics, from Dawn A. Lott’s pun on being a square and Kendra Pleasant’s explanation of her Pisces tattoo as containing an image of the Greek letter and mathematical symbol pi to Bourama Toni’s statement that “it is only in math that I felt I can be myself.”
The challenges of getting an education during segregation and even after it ended are illustrated in the opening section, Surviving Segregation. It begins with Nathaniel Whitaker, professor of mathematics and statistics at UMass Amherst, describing his childhood as the son of sharecroppers in Ahoskie, North Carolina, before integration. Every Sunday, his father took the family to a drive-in theater that had separate areas for Whites and Coloreds. However, he believes that the Black schools he attended in those years—the only schools open to him—instilled in him a sense of self-esteem that gave him the confidence to pursue his professional goals.
In the 1960s, Donald Cole was barred from becoming a mathematics major and then expelled from the University of Mississippi when he protested. He worked in steel mills in Indiana before receiving an invitation to attend Tougaloo College, near Jackson, Mississippi. When he was finally able to transfer back to Ole Miss, the obstacles to his mere presence were gone, and he went on to become a faculty member, then a dean.
Two of the most influential figures in increasing the number of Black students in mathematics are Sylvia and Robert Bozeman. She is retired from Spelman College, he from Morehouse. We learn about their early education and how they met. Both went to Rosenwald schools, a project of thousands of rural schools for African American students in 15 southern states started around 1912 and funded by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald in partnership with educator and activist Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute.
Carolyn Mahoney grew up in segregated Memphis, the sixth of thirteen children in her family. She describes being forced to cross the street as a child when a White man indicated he did not want to be on the same sidewalk with her. Mahoney went on to earn a PhD at Ohio State University, then taught at Cal State San Marcos before a stint at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. She ended her career as president of Lincoln University, an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) established by Black Civil War veterans.
Tepper Gill grew up on the eastern side of Detroit. When he realized that the automobile industry that had supported his parents would not provide him the same secure future, he enrolled in college, one of the few young people from his neighborhood to do so. He eloquently describes the dearth of cultural preparation for the experience: “I had to ask myself, ‘What does it mean to know?’ I already knew I didn’t know.” Gill went on to make important contributions in theoretical physics and taught at Howard University until his retirement.
Once segregation was outlawed, Black students often found themselves among the few—and not infrequently the only—African American in a mostly White school or class. Bonita V. Saunders experienced it in high school. Raymond Johnson was the first Black student to earn a PhD at Rice University. Johnson soon became a pivotal figure at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he mentored and produced a large number of Black PhDs in mathematics. In 1999, the school graduated three Black women with PhDs in math: Sherry E. Scott, Kimberly S. Weems, and Tasha Inniss. The moment was celebrated by media nationwide. In the film, the three describe the attention and attribute their success to the efforts of Dr. Johnson, who made sure they persevered.
In the 1960s, PWIs began to enroll more Black students. Professor Kimberly Sellers recalls how she and the only other African American student in an honors-level calculus one course were advised to drop the class by the professor on the first day. S. James Gates Jr. went to MIT in 1969 and describes the experience of standing out as different. Other African American students at MIT felt that once they graduated, they should teach at HBCUs. He differed with that view and pursued what was to become a stellar career as a research physicist. National Association of Mathematicians president Asamoah Nkwanta, who is also chair of the Department of Mathematics at Morgan State University, chokes up when he explains how it was a Black cleaning lady who provided the emotional support that helped get him through his student years at the University of Milwaukee.
Among the strongest voices in the film is that of Dawn A. Lott, who started out as one of only 50 African Americans on a campus of 4,000 students at Bucknell University. “I had to learn how to put myself out there to make myself known for being good,” she explains. Lott’s graduate school experience at Northwestern, where she eventually earned her PhD, was only slightly less lonely. An applied mathematician, she is currently in her 19th year of teaching at the University of Delaware, where she has produced a respectable number of PhD graduates in mathematics.
When Johnny L. Houston graduated from Morehouse College, he enrolled at Purdue University to earn his PhD in mathematics. In the mid-1960s, Black students could not live in the dorms at Purdue. Houston describes the protest that led to the university establishing a Black Cultural Center, where we see a 2023 award ceremony honoring one of the school’s most popular tenured mathematics professors, Johnny E. Brown. When Brown started teaching at Purdue 44 years earlier, a White student walked out of his class upon seeing he was the professor. Edray Goins, who also taught at Purdue, reinforces Brown’s experience, explaining the dilemma of being a Black teacher at a university where students have encountered few, if any, Black instructors. Goins, today a professor at Pomona College, talks about White students being unable to see him as someone capable of teaching them.
Black mathematicians are regularly confronted by stereotypes and expectations that they will underperform. Talitha M. Washington, inaugural director of the Data Science Initiative at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, talks about repeatedly being asked as a student what country she was from. Kevin Corlette, director of the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (iMSi) at the University of Chicago, tells how he was challenged when he applied for a grant designated for minorities because he is light-skinned. “There are barriers around feeling incapable, about feeling out of place, about feeling that one is doing something relevant,” Corlette states.
These barriers exacerbate the feelings that one does not belong, feeding symptoms of impostor syndrome. Anisah Nu’Man, who teaches at Spelman, emphasizes that it is important to understand that one’s position in the field has been rightfully earned. Nathaniel Whitaker stresses that the sense of belonging to a community is enhanced when those in leadership positions are welcoming. Whitaker has extended his career as a dean at UMass Amherst for exactly this reason—to show himself as a role model to students just starting out at the school.
Ron Buckmire, currently dean of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics at Marist College, introduces the idea of intersectionality, in which a person cannot be defined by a single identity. Black students initially had trouble with Buckmire identifying as both Black and a member of the LGBTQ community.
The number of African Americans in mathematics and related fields is again dropping. Dawn A. Lott and Talitha M. Washington provide some discouraging numbers. Robin Wilson, a mathematics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, tries to combat the decline by creating a supportive environment for his students. He explains that his approach to teaching differs from what he experienced as a student. “I try to create an environment where my students feel seen and supported. You know if your instructor doesn’t believe that you’re a strong student. With the right support, that barrier is removed.”
Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, cites the importance of ambassadors for mathematics, holding up Talithia Williams, a professor at Harvey Mudd, as an example. Williams champions math literacy relentlessly in her appearances on NOVA science programs and in national and international speeches and advocates making scientists and mathematicians into celebrated role models. Fern Hunt, a retired researcher, echoes the need for students to learn about African American pioneers in mathematics.
We see these sentiments being tested at an innovative program filmed in 2022 at Horace Mann UCLA Community School in Los Angeles. Under the guidance of Wilfrid Gangbo, the UCLA mathematics professor who conceived it, students created information-packed posters of pioneers in mathematics and science after researching their lives and accomplishments.
One pair of students, Desyray and Mya, chose to study Scott Williams, a pioneer in the creation of a database of African American mathematicians (MAD) and a cofounder of the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM). Williams was featured in Forging Resilience and makes several appearances in Creating Pathways.
Ever, another student interviewed at Horace Mann, chose David Blackwell as a case study because he was intrigued by Blackwell’s love of mathematics. Blackwell, probably the most important African American mathematician of the 20th century, rose to prominence as an acclaimed statistician, but major universities refused to hire him because of his race. He taught at Howard University for a decade and then, only after his outstanding theoretical work was recognized internationally, was offered a position in the statistics department of the University of California, Berkeley. He became the first Black professor tenured at Berkeley.
Blackwell’s story and a partial list of his theoretical contributions are described by Jacqueline Hughes-Oliver, William Massey, and Johnny L. Houston. His legacy lives on in the form of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize, awarded every two years to an individual who has contributed and continues to contribute significantly to research in the mathematical and statistical sciences and who also works to end the underrepresentation of minorities in the field of mathematics. In 2010, Arlie Petters, now provost of NYU Abu Dhabi, was the first to receive the prize and excitedly relates that Blackwell was still alive.
Blackwell’s presence at Berkeley was one of the reasons that the first meeting of the Conference for African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences (CAARMS) was held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley in 1995. Scenes from the 2023 CAARMS meeting held at Purdue are shown, along with comments from CAARMS founder William Massey of Princeton and other participants. Scott Williams considers it the most prestigious forum for the presentation of new work by members of the African diaspora. Wilfrid Gangbo emphasizes that the presence of other African American researchers at the conference inspires confidence that participants share common interests.
The knowledge that one is not alone is a powerful incentive that MIT’s John Urschel is acutely aware of. Urschel’s story cuts across stereotypes. He earned a degree in mathematics at Penn State while playing football for the university, and went on to play professionally for the Baltimore Ravens for three years while completing his PhD. Urschel understands that he is a role model in a culture where NFL football players are revered while mathematicians are unknown. Being both gives him opportunities to reach a wider public, especially among youth.
One project designed to increase retention of graduating college students in the mathematical fields is the Mathematically Advancing Young Undergraduates Program (MAY-UP), a collaborative effort between SLMath and Morehouse College. The session filmed in 2023 shows Shelby Wilson, a mathematician also featured in Forging Resilience, teaching sixteen students selected from four Atlanta area colleges at a workshop. The students, all on the cusp of career decisions, bond with the instructors and learn about opportunities to continue their studies in mathematics.
We follow one Morehouse College mathematics graduate introduced in Forging Resilience. A year after graduating, Kobe Lawson-Chavanu is at his family home in California. He talks about his summer internships at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where he was able to work with mathematicians he met at the NAM MATHFest while he was still an undergraduate. Preparing for his second year of graduate studies at Emory University, he speculates about a career in Silicon Valley once he completes his degree.
Another student originally featured in Forging Resilience is Alexis Edozie, whom we first see participating in the 2022 MSRI-UP program at Berkeley. Now a graduate student in statistics at the University of Michigan, Edozie is interested in disease modeling and is hoping for a career as a data analyst.
Exemplifying yet another dimension of mathematics is S. James Gates Jr., a theoretical physicist who calls himself a fallen mathematician. Gates is known for his discoveries and collaboration with Warren Siegel in the development of theories about supersymmetry. He explains why he is a fallen mathematician this way: “The work that I do exists between mathematics and reality. I call that place Mathicality.”
Gates, Tepper Gill, and Arlie Petters were at the cutting edge of theoretical work in fields that use mathematical tools. All of them believe that scientific discovery owes much to the unconscious. Gill and Gates eloquently describe this ineffable side of scientific research. Petters tells a story about a breakthrough he had on an intractable problem while staring at the horizon out the window of a train.
Kevin Corlette summarizes these philosophical explanations for how science progresses and its meaning by saying that the core of mathematical exploration is the desire to uncover patterns and reveal connections between them. He adds that expanding the insights gained to real world problems “can also be very helpful.” It is an introduction to the realm of applied mathematics, and several areas of concentration available to mathematicians are touched on. Fern Hunt and Bonita V. Saunders moved from theoretical to applications and had long careers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Hunt describes her path to NIST and how her knowledge of probabilistic methods and stochastic differential equations became valuable tools. She also describes the advent of computer graphics innovations in generating models and images that today are taken for granted. An example is the ubiquitous use of computer-generated imagery in movies.
Mathematical modeling techniques are today applied in design, climate prediction, and medicine. Linda B. Hayden, director of the Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research (CERSER) at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) in North Carolina, in collaboration with the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), has sent students to study ice sheets in Antarctica and the Arctic. The data they collect is used to measure the rates at which ice sheets are melting.
Johnny L. Houston, one of the founders of NAM, also happens to live in Elizabeth City. The stories of his educational experiences at Morehouse College and at Purdue University are spread throughout the Journeys of Black Mathematicians films. As we see him at his home, Houston discusses his upbringing in a poor rural community in Georgia and the guiding hand of a grandmother who promoted education. He became the first Black professor with a PhD in mathematics at ECSU and helped develop the computer science and aviation programs at the school.
Despite these stories of accomplishment, there are still too few Black mathematicians. The African American Joint Mathematics Workshop (ADJOINT) is an annual workshop held at SLMath at which research faculty from different schools work together on teams addressing specific problems. At one session, team leader Trachette Jackson from the University of Michigan describes her group’s project: looking at a cancer immunotherapy problem where a patient’s own cells are engineered to attack a particular cancer molecule. We meet Chartese Jones, an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Missouri-Columbia who discusses his use of modeling to contribute to the team’s work. Jones has a personal history of not fitting in and exuberantly credits ADJOINT for helping him to realize he is not alone. Jackson echoes that the experience of being surrounded by other Black researchers is “energizing. It is motivating.”
While S. James Gates Jr. worries that future generations of young Black mathematicians will face a society betting against them just as it bet against him, Daniel Williams III, a retired mathematics professor from Howard University, sees “tremendous change for the better.” The film gives Chartese Jones, a mathematician still in the formative years of his career, the last word. “Mathematics has shaped me into a more idealistic person. My creativity and my imagination and my experience allow me to create a very different approach to mathematics, and to see mathematics from a very different angle.”
These stories reveal that there is no single mold or role model for the pursuit of knowledge or achievement in mathematics, just as there should be no single voice for Black mathematicians. Diversity inside the community is its strongest tool. Digging deeper into the individual stories, we uncover rare gems and exciting discoveries.
TEMPE, ARIZONA – February 7, 2025 – 9 a.m.
Life Sciences Center, LSE106, Arizona State University
LOS ANGELES – February 5, 2025 – 6 p.m.
Bruce Featherston Life Sciences, 120, Loyola Marymount University
UNITED STATES – Beginning February 2, 2025
Via American Public Television
SEATTLE – January 11, 2025 – 11:30 a.m.
World premiere, Joint Mathematics Meetings
Seattle Convention Center
Feb. 7, 2025 - A screening and panel discussion of Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Creating Pathways is planned on February 7, 9 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., at Arizona State University, Tempe. The student event will open with a breakfast reception and coffee break, followed by the screening and panel discussion featuring director George Csicsery; film participants Sylvia Bozeman, Johnny Houston, Emille Davie Lawrence and Dawn Lott; and moderator Donatella Danielli. Event hosts include the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and SoMSS Charter Initiatives Committee. Find event details and a link to register here.
Feb. 5, 2025 - The Loyola Marymount University Seaver College of Science and Engineering’s Math Department is hosting a free public screening of Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Creating Pathways on February 5, 2025, from 6 to 8 p.m., in FEA 120. A panel discussion and reception will follow. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.
Feb. 2, 2025 - Both films in the Journeys of Black Mathematicians series, Forging Resilience and Creating Pathways, will be broadcast on public television in the US via APT starting in February 2025. Check APTonline or the Journeys of Black Mathematicians airdates page to find out where to watch in your area.
Jan. 11, 2025 - The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath) and the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM) have invited JMM 2025 registrants and the public to join them in Seattle on January 11, 2025, at 11:30 a.m., for the world premiere of the second of two documentary films produced by Zala Films as part of the Journeys of Black Mathematicians documentary series. Creating Pathways follows Forging Resilience, the first film in the series, and introduces new characters, highlighting the lives of Black pioneers in mathematics from the 20th century. The film focuses on the stories of mathematicians who attended predominantly White institutions, and surveys a range of attitudes around identity and scholars’ achievements in a variety of fields.