Born: August 14, 1883, Charleston, SC

Education: Dartmouth College, B.S. magna cum laude, 1907, University of Chicago, Ph.D. magna cum laude, 1916

Died: October 27, 1941, Washington, DC

Just rose from humble beginnings in the segregated South to become an internationally recognized and respected scientist.

He was a wunderkind. Finishing Dartmouth College with high honors, he taught at Howard University for more than thirty years. In 1911 he helped Howard men to organize Omega Psi Phi, a black fraternity. Earning his doctorate, he pursued research on the fertilization in marine animal eggs. His book, The Biology of the Cell Surface (1939), largely established experimental embryology.

Just clearly challenged the limits of Jim Crow. Though he declared that blacks should study and excel in science for its discipline and objectivity, he understood that they would do so in a racist society. Thus he found opportunities to teach and write in Europe where white racism seemed less pervasive. Still, Howard's deans chafed at his frequent leaves of absence between 1929 and 1940. Philanthropic foundations eagerly supported his European work and authorities in Nazi-occupied France once detained him. He returned home, resumed teaching, and had begun to mend fences at Howard before his illness and untimely death. One colleague said that “an element of tragedy ran through all Just's scientific career due to the limitations imposed by being a Negro in America” (Manning, 1983, p. 329).