BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for April 11.

Birthday of chemist Percy Julian.

He was the first to synthesize the natural product physostigmine and was a pioneer in the industrial large-scale chemical synthesis of the human hormones progesterone and testosterone from plant sterols.

He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the son of a railway mail clerk and the grandson of enslaved people.

Julian attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The college accepted few African-American students.

He graduated in 1920 as a Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian.

He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the second African-American scientist inducted from any field.

In 1953, he established Julian Laboratories, a successful enterprise that he sold for more than $2 million in 1961. 

He later formed Julian Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization. 

He was active as a fund-raiser for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for their project to sue to enforce civil rights legislation.

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