In 1916, 17-year-old Percy Lavon Julian, the grandson of a former slave, journeyed from Montgomery, AL, to Greencastle, IN, to begin his college education at DePauw University. In spite of his scant preparation-insufficient public education available to African Americans in Alabama made it necessary for him to take remedial high-school classes while at DePauw-the chemist graduated as class valedictorian. He went on to synthesize both a drug for the treatment of glaucoma and cortisone for rheumatoid arthritis.

Despite Julian's academic success, his professors informed him that they couldn't secure him a position at a graduate school or an industrial lab because of his race. Instead, Julian became a chemistry instructor at Fisk University in Nashville, TN; two years later, he went to Harvard University to study biophysics and organic chemistry. He received his master's degree in 1923 but again was denied a faculty position. After teaching at West Virginia State College and Howard University, he received a grant in 1929 from the Rockefeller Foundation to get his PhD. He chose to attend the University of Vienna in Austria, where he developed a passion for the chemistry of natural products.