Thread by @c0nc0rdance

I want to tell you the story of Vivienne Malone-Mayes, Texas-born mathemetician and professor, but I don't think you can understand her journey without talking about the #AcademicRacism in which she existed.

Vivienne attended segregated schools in her home-town of Waco. She finished her BS in medicine at 19, a masters at 21, switched to mathematics after studying under Evelyn Boyd Granville (shown), who helped program the calculations for Mercury and later Apollo missions.

In 1962, she was refused admission to Baylor University (in Waco), which would be whites-only until '64. Instead, she enrolled at the University of Texas (in Austin) in a PhD program for mathematics. She was the only woman & the only Black person in her class.

She wasn't allowed to teach (faculty were white-only), couldn't attend off-campus meetings held at whites-only coffee shops & was blocked from taking Robert Lee Moore's graduate course.

Here's where I shift focus to Robert Lee Moore, a legend in math instruction & topology.

RL Moore's father was born in Connecticut, but fought for the Confederacy, moved to Dallas after the war. He named his son Robert Lee (pictured, as a young man) to honor his commander.

RL by the 1960's was in a semi-retirement as one of the foremost mathematicians in his field.

The 'Moore School' is experience-based form of advanced math instruction.

He had mentored top figures in American mathematics from the 40's-50's, producing 50 PhDs from his program.

He was an ardent & outspoken segregationist.

One Black student, Walker E Hunt, was told "you are welcome to take my course but you start with a C and can only go down from there."

He walked out of a talk given by one of his mentee's students, upon discovering she was Black.

So Vivienne was not only the only Black woman in her program in 1962, she couldn't freely associate with her academic community, faced hostile faculty, disrespect & disdain. But she persisted.

And graduated in 1966 with a PhD in Mathematics with a dissertation entitled "A structure problem in asymptotic analysis".

She became the first Black woman to join the faculty of Baylor (which had refused her admission just 5 years earlier).

She had a long and illustrious career, was active in charities & her community., was honored for her work in both primary scholarship and decades of teaching.

She retired in 1994 & passed away in 1995.

A life well lived.

Bonus, a story she told of a white professor at UT who commented to her:
"If all those out there were like you, hard-working and studious, we wouldn't have any problems."

She replied:
"If it hadn't been for those hell-raisers out there, you wouldn't even know me."

🫳🎤