CLIFTON FORGE — Mayor Pam Marshall, Clifton Forge’s first Black female mayor, presided over a ceremony that honored Roger Arliner Young, the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in zoology.
Standing on the front steps of the Clifton Forge Town Hall on Friday, Marshall welcomed a crowd that had gathered along with reporters from television stations and area newspapers.
Roger Arliner Young was born in Clifton Forge in 1899. Soon after her birth, Young’s family moved to Pennsylvania, and Young grew up in Burgettstown.
The ceremony Marshall presided over was the unveiling of the historic marker that was approved by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources. The historic marker has been erected in front of the Clifton Forge Town Hall to commemorate Young’s achievements, namely the research that she did on the anatomy of paramecium and the effects of radiation on sea urchin eggs.
The Virginia Marker Historic Program began in 1927, the year after Young earned her M. A. degree in zoology at the University of Chicago. In 1921 at Howard University, she took a zoology course taught by Ernest Everett, the Black biologist who was head of the zoology department. The course changed her life.
Young had enrolled to pursue studies in music, but Everett inspired her to change her field of study, and the rest is history. She completed her PH. D. in zoology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940 at the age of 41.
Much of her significant research was done at the prestigious Marine Biological Laboratory in ME after she had gained international recognition by having an article published in the Journal of Science in 1924.
Young earned her B.A. degree from Howard University and her M.S. degree from the University of Chicago, and she taught zoology at HU, became a civil rights activist and was active as a labor union organizer. She passed away in New Orleans in 1964.
After the invocation, Julie Langan from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources spoke about the Virginia Historic Marker Program that is responsible for erecting more than 2,600 historic markers throughout Virginia. She preceded Dr. Josh Howard, a historian who spoke about the significance of Young’s accomplishments.
Wanda Davis, a volunteer, unveiled the historic marker before the Rev. Marion Sortore from the Central United Methodist Church bookended the ceremony by rendering the benediction, having also opened the ceremony with his invocation.
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