Percy Julian was an intelligent, ambitious young man born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1899. As an African American in the first part of the 20th century, he experienced racism throughout his life.

When Percy was a child, black Americans in the South rarely went to school after eighth grade. They were expected to go on to work at low-level jobs. But Julian wanted to become a scientist. He studied hard, graduated from high school, and was able to go to college when he was 17.

In this lesson, you will learn about the racism Percy Julian experienced, how he persevered in spite of it, and how it shaped his character—his way of thinking and acting.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• It is possible to understand a lot about people's character from their actions.
• People can overcome difficult situations by working toward their goals.

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Making inferences
• Categorizing basic facts and ideas
• Constructing summaries

• racism
• trait

Percy Julian went to college in the North, at DePauw University in Indiana, and then got a master's degree from Harvard University. But because he was black, no school in the United States would accept him as a student for the final step in his education—a doctoral degree in chemistry.

The videos in this lesson are a dramatization of Julian's life. As you watch this video, think about the kind of person Julian had to be to persevere in spite of the racism he faced in school.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

Based on this video, what two character traits would you use to describe Percy Julian? Use specific examples from the video that show these traits.

Julian earned his doctoral degree in Vienna, but once he was back in America, no white-owned chemical company would hire him. He taught for five years before he was offered a good job at the Glidden Company in Chicago in 1936.

Click "View" on the left to watch a video about his career.

What new information have you learned about Julian as an adult that tells you about his character? Write two to three sentences with specific examples from the video.

Even though Percy Julian had a high-level job at Glidden, he found that he was not offered chances to move even higher. He decided to leave Glidden and start his own chemistry lab.

In 1950, Julian and his family moved into the wealthy white Chicago neighborhood of Oak Park. Some of the people there didn't want a black family to live in Oak Park. Julian and his family were terrorized—frightened and threatened—by attacks on their house.

Click "View" on the left to watch a video in which Julian's son describes an attack on their house.

From what you know about Julian's character, write down how you think he would have reacted to these attacks on his family and home.

Now, watch a video in which an actor portrays Julian's response to the threats on his family and home. Compare his response to your prediction.

Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

In what ways was Percy Julian's response similar to or different from what you predicted?

Even though a video or reading may not give specific information about a person or an event, you can often use what you see, hear, or read to infer that information. In this case, you know something about facing difficult problems, and you can apply that knowledge to understanding Julian's character. Julian's actions in response to racism lead us to infer that he had the character trait of perseverance, to keep going no matter what challenges he faced.

In the video you just watched, how did Percy Julian demonstrate perseverance in the face of racism?

The videos you have watched showed how Percy Julian persevered in spite of racism.

Now, show what you have learned so far about Julian's life and his character by answering these three questions. Be sure to save all your answers before you go to the next screen.

In this lesson, you have learned about Percy Julian's ability to persevere in the face of racism. Now you will read about his life and make inferences about his character from the facts you learn.

Click "View" on the left to read the passage.

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Before moving to the next screen, choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: character, infer, perseverance, racism, trait

As you have seen and read on the previous screens, Percy Julian fought racism many times throughout his life. In this activity, you will sort information on a concept map according to how he was affected by racism at different times.

Click "View" on the left to begin the activity. Your teacher will review the answers with you.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's videos again or reread the passage.

The Will to Persevere

Video: 2m 09s

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Standing Up to Racism

Video: 0m 44s

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Moving to Oak Park: The Attack

Video: 0m 54s

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Moving to Oak Park: The Reaction

Video: 0m 22s

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The Content of His Character: Percy Julian

Document

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In this lesson, you have learned about Percy Julian's character, and about perseverance. You will now write an essay that demonstrates what you have learned and what you have inferred about Julian's character.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Download  Understanding Character: The Life of Percy Julian—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics in the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned from the reading passage, video(s), and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or a form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.