Patricia Bath : science_memes@mander.xyz

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 94 points 3 months ago (8 children)

From her Wikipedia article:

The device was completed in 1986 after Bath conducted research on lasers in Berlin and patented in 1988, making her the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a medical purpose.

This bit of trivia is actually what surprised me most. "A medical purpose" is so general, and 1988 is so late by comparison.

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[–] dalekcaan@feddit.nl 63 points 3 months ago (1 child)

It's easy to forget sometimes how recent segregation still is. It reminds me of this letter from Emory university dated 1959, less than 75 years ago, denying an applicant for being "a member of the negro race." They only apologized for it about five years ago.

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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago*

Here's a good 2021 article from Emory University Magazine discussing Hood and his application.

Edit: My favorite paragraph:

In one of the peculiarities of the segregation era, the state of Georgia paid Black students the difference in cost to attend school out of state. “If it cost $500 a year to go to school in Georgia, and it cost $1,000 to go up there, they would pay the extra $500 so I would pay the same thing,” Hood explains. “And I would come home each semester, go down to the capitol, and reluctantly they would give me this check to take back to Loyola University.”

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[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 57 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

Ruby Bridges--the little girl featured in maybe the most famous photo of desegregation, being walked home from school by US marshals, the photo that inspired Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With"--she's still alive. And not super old, either; she'll turn 72 this September.

That's the fact that blows me away about segregation.

"The past is never dead; it isn't even past."

Ruby Bridges in 1960