Today In Black History: Dr. Thomas Wyatt Turner
The first African American to receive a PhD in Botany
Issue #891 Today In Black History, Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Thomas Wyatt Turner (1877-1978) was a pioneering African American scientist, educator, and civil rights activist whose extraordinary career spanned over eight decades. He was born on March 16, 1877, in Hughesville, Maryland, and became the first Black American to receive a Ph.D. in botany, while also helping to found both the NAACP and the Federated Colored Catholics.
Turner studied at Howard University, gaining a Bachelor of Science degree in 1901 and a Master of Arts degree. In 1921, he obtained a PhD in botany from Cornell University, becoming the first Black person to gain a doctorate from Cornell and the first to receive a doctorate in that field at any institution.
His groundbreaking research in plant pathology and mycology included work at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as his tenure as a professor of Botany at Howard University and later at Hampton Institute.
Dr. Turner also taught at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, at the request of Booker T. Washington, where he taught academic subjects in biology for a year.
In 1909, Dr. Turner became a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving as the first secretary of the Baltimore branch, and was also actively involved in promoting the voting rights of African Americans.
From 1914 to 1924, Dr. Turner served as a Professor of Botany at Howard University in Washington, D.C., which had provided courses in botany since 1867. He was the founding head of the Department of Botany when it was established in 1922. He also served from 1914 to 1920 as Acting Dean at Howard's School of Education.
Dr. Turner was initiated as a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity in 1915.
Also in 1915, Dr. Turner began lobbying the Catholic University of America to admit Black students and for the Catholic church to provide high school education for Black Catholic children, as well as a route to the priesthood for young Black men, specifically via the Josephites. He would later become one of the members of the Committee of Fifteen, which addressed such issues.
In 1931, Dr. Turner organized the Virginia Conference of College Science Teachers and served as its president for two terms. Turner was also an active member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Society for Horticultural Science.
The Cornell Graduate School established the Turner Kittrell Medal of Honor to recognize alumni who have made significant national or international contributions to advancing diversity, inclusion, and equity in academia, industry, or the public sector. The first award was in 2017.
In 1976, at the age of 99, Thomas W. Turner was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Catholic University of America.
Dr. Turner died in 1978, 36 days after turning 101.
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