Lesson Plan
African Americans and the Manhattan Project
Left: Manhattan Project Emblem, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Right: Lawrence Howland Knox, one of the African American scientists who worked on the Manhattan
Project. Image reproduced with permission of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections
Library.
Grade Level(s): 9-12
Subject(s): History, Physics
In-Class Time: 90 min each activity
Prep Time: 10-15 min
Materials
Part One: African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project
• Manhattan Project Scientist Profiles (Reproduced with permission from BlackPast.org, see
supplemental materials)
Part Two: African Americans and Life in a Secret City
• Hanford Oral History Interviews (see supplemental materials)
• Photographs African American Life at Hanford (see supplemental materials)
Part Three: Chain Reaction Activity
• Materials listed in the Chain Reaction Activity document (see supplemental materials)
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
1
Objective
Students will learn about the role of African Americans in the Manhattan Project as scientists,
technicians, and workers. In the first part of this lesson plan, students will examine the fifteen scientists
and technicians who contributed scientifically to the Manhattan Project. In the second part, students
will learn about African Americans who worked and lived at one of the secret cities built for the
Manhattan Project in Hanford, Washington. A third activity, in a separate document, introduces
students to the concept of nuclear fission.
Introduction
The Manhattan Project
In August 1939, famous physicists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard wrote a letter to then President
Franklin Roosevelt warning him of German attempts to create “extremely powerful bombs of a new
type” and recommending that the United States counter these efforts by producing the bomb first.
Thus began what was called the Manhattan Project, one of the largest scientific undertakings in United
States history, lasting from 1941-1946. The Project entailed the building of three completely new and
secret cities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Los Alamos, New Mexico and Hanford, Washington and the work
of scientists at University of Chicago, University of California, and Columbia University. In all, over
400,000 individuals worked on the Manhattan Project but only a handful of those people knew what
they were working toward: the construction of the atomic bomb.
Part One: African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project
Jim Crow segregation and racial discrimination meant that the vast majority of African Americans were
not able to work on the Project as scientists or technicians. Despite the tremendous barriers, a small
group of African American scientists worked with white scientists towards the creation of the atomic
bomb. In all, fifteen African Americans contributed scientifically to the creation of the bomb, six
scientists and nine technicians. Their names are as follows:
Scientists:
1. William Jacob Knox
2. Lawrence A. Knox
3. Samuel Proctor Massie
4. Moddie Daniel Taylor
5. J. Ernest Wilkins
6. Lloyd A. Quarterman
Technicians:
1. Sherman Carter
2. Harold Delaney
3. Harold Evans
4. Ralph Garnier-Chavis
5. Jasper Brown Jeffries
6. Robert Johnson Omohundro
7. George Warren Reed
8. Edwin Roberts Russell
9. Benjamin Franklin Scott
The African American community took great pride in the work of these scientists, and their work was
publicized in national newspapers such as the Chicago Defender and the Afro-American. One article
stated, “Under the general direction of Dr. John R. Dunning, assistant professor of the Physics
Department, and Dr. Enrico Fermi, Nobel Prize winner of Italy…these able colored men worked side
by side in perfect scientific comradeship with white scientists to produce the greatest feat in history.” 1
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
2
Among the names of scientists are some amazing figures in the history of African Americans in science.
William and Lawrence Knox were brothers from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Remarkably, both
brothers held Ph.D.s in Chemistry in 1935 and 1940 respectively. This made them part of a group of only
30 African Americans who received their Ph.D. in Chemistry since 1916. William Knox acted as
supervisor of the group of scientists. Another remarkable figure was J. Ernest Wilkins, who received his
Ph.D. at University of Chicago at the age of 19.
Part Two: African Americans and Life in a Secret City
The Manhattan Project had sites all across the United States and the bomb was also tested in the Pacific
Islands (Bikini Islands). 2 Each of these sites had a different function in the ultimate project to build an
atomic bomb. Hanford Engineering Works or the Hanford Site was established in 1943 as part of the
Manhattan Project on almost 600-square-miles of shrub-steppe desert. The Hanford Site was dedicated
to the production of plutonium, a crucial ingredient in the creation of the atomic bomb. The site was
the home of the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor called the “B Reactor.” The
plutonium manufactured at Hanford was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as the bomb that landed
on Nagasaki.
Prior to World War II, the land where Hanford would be built was inhabited by Native Americans of the
Yakima, Nez Perce, and Umatilla tribes. The Wanapum band of the Yakima nation were displaced by the
Hanford Site and relocated. 3 Starting in 1943, the land was acquired by the federal government for the
purposes of producing the first full-scale plutonium-producing reactor in the world. Plutonium that was
produced at Hanford was used in the first nuclear bomb and in “Fat Man,” the atomic bomb detonated
over Nagasaki, Japan which killed around 40,000 people instantly and injured around 25,000. Radiation
from the explosion brought the death toll to around 70,000. The explosion of “Fat Man” at Nagasaki
and “Little Boy” at Hiroshima led to Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II. When news broke
that plutonium from Hanford had led to the creation of the atomic bomb, thousands of workers who
lived and worked at the site were just as surprised as the American public. While they lived, worked,
and raised their families on the site, very few were told what their work was contributing to national
security reasons.
In order to bring thousands of workers to the Hanford Site, the DuPont corporation recruited African
Americans in the American South. According to historian Robert Bauman, the African American
population of the Tri-Cities area in 1943 was twenty-seven. Over the course of the next few years, more
than 15,000 African Americans followed DuPont’s promise of higher wages and jobs and arrived in the
Hanford site to construct the houses and buildings of “Richland,” keep the workers at Hanford fed, or
produce the plutonium that would be used to fuel the atomic bomb. These migrants were part of what
is called the Great Migration in which millions of African Americans left the South following World War I.
1
George S. Schuyler, “Negro Scientists Played Important Role in Development of Atomic Bomb: Knox Heads Group
at Columbia,” The Pittsburgh Courier, August 18, 1945, p. 17, accessed through ProQuest Historical Newspapers:
Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).
2
For a list of Manhattan Project sites see U.S. Department of Energy – Office of History and Heritage Resources,
“The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History,” https://www.osti.gov/manhattan-projecthistory/Places/places.htm or Sites of the Manhattan Project, Manhattan Voices Project:
http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/locations/.
3
For more information, see an interview with Rex Buck, a member of the Wanapum Indian tribe who grew up near
the Manhattan Project site at Hanford. http://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/rex-bucksinterview.
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
3
Leading up to and during World War II, African Americans, along with other Americans, flocked to places
where the national defense industries were expanding, especially on the West Coast. Life at Hanford
was not always easy – African American workers faced racial segregation and discrimination and
conditions at Hanford were harsh. But for many, especially African Americans migrating from the
Southeast, working at Hanford represented better opportunity. Their stories document how African
Americans experienced and contributed to the famous Manhattan Project.
Following World War II, nuclear technology became increasingly popular and the Hanford Site was
expanded to encompass nine nuclear reactors and five plutonium processing complex. It provided the
plutonium that fueled tens of thousands of weapons. Many of the environmental protections and
safety measures we have in place today were not used while the Hanford Site was in operation, which
would have restricted the site from releasing nuclear waste into the air and rivers. At the end of the
Cold War, the Hanford Site was decommissioned. By that time, it had become the most contaminated
nuclear site in the United States. The history of Hanford continues as the site of the nation’s largest
contamination clean-up.
Part Three: Chain Reaction Activity!
See separate document “Chain Reaction Activity” (see supplemental material).
Instructions/Activities
Students should be introduced to the Manhattan Project and the historical context of World War II. For
general resources on the history of the Manhattan Project, see the Further Reading section.
Part One: African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project
1. Students can divide into groups of two or three and pick one of the fifteen African American
scientists and technicians that worked on the Manhattan Project from the list provided above.
2. Each group should conduct research on the scientist you chose, noting how historical forces
(such as the Great Migration or the desegregation of the U.S. military for example) made an
impact in their lives.
3. Discussion questions can be used as guiding questions for research (see below).
4. Present your findings to the class!
Part Two: African Americans and Life in a Secret City
1. Start by introducing the students to the various sites of the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan
Voices Project has put together an interactive map of all these sites that can be projected and
explored (http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/locations/).
2. After exploring several sites, end by focusing on Hanford. Give the students some background
about Hanford (see introduction). Some historical context can also be given related to the
opening of defense industries to African Americans following civil rights activism for
employment opportunities led by those such as A. Philip Randolph which led to the signing of
Executive Order 8802.
3. Give students copies of Willie Daniels’s and Luzell Johnson’s interview transcripts and the series
of photographs of African American life at Hanford (see supplemental materials).
4. Students can work in groups of three or more to read the transcripts and discuss their answers
to the discussion questions below.
5. Discuss as a class.
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
4
Part Three: Chain Reaction Activity!
See separate document “Chain Reaction Activity.”
Required/Recommended Reading and Resources
Part One: African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project
•
Manhattan Project Scientists Biographies (Reproduced with permission of BlackPast.org, see
supplemental material)
Part Two: African Americans and Life in a Secret City
•
•
Hanford Oral History Interviews (see supplemental material)
Photographs African American Life at Hanford (see supplemental material)
Part Three: Chain Reaction Activity!
•
See separate document “Chain Reaction Activity” (see supplemental material)
Discussion Questions
Part One: African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project
1. Where were the scientists and technicians located?
2. What were the scientists and technicians involved in the Manhattan Project working on? What
kind of research were they doing in order to complete their goal?
3. What historical forces were at work in the process of these individuals becoming involved in the
Manhattan Project?
4. What did these scientists have in common? In what ways did they differ?
5. What fields were each of these scientists in? How did their different disciplines contribute to
the making of the atomic bomb?
Part Two: African Americans and Life in a Secret City
1. How did African Americans hear about job opportunities at Hanford Engineering Works? Why
did many decide to migrate to Washington?
2. Why do you think DuPont decided to recruit African Americans from the South even though the
site was across the country in Washington state?
3. What was life like for African Americans at Hanford?
4. How did segregation affect their daily lives? What parts of Hanford life were segregated? What
parts weren’t?
Part Three: Chain Reaction Activity!
See separate document “Chain Reaction Activity” (see supplemental material)
Further Reading and Additional Resources
Videos:
• “The Manhattan Project Documentary” (approx. 50 min),
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwHds1any9Y&list=PL6CCA2161AEE5A9C5>: Five-part
documentary on the Manhattan Project available on YouTube. Provides a good historical
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
5
•
context of the Manhattan Project. This can be used as background information for this lesson
plan.
“The Hanford Story” (16 min 43 sec) < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbdxaYd4rs&list=PLA7367A5A9900257F> : A six-part series on the story of the Hanford Engineering
Site at Richland, Washington.
Further Reading:
• Cody Ferguson and AACCES, “Black Americans at Hanford during WWII,” Reach Stories ,
accessed October 27, 2014, http://reachstories.org/items/show/24. This website contains short
video interviews with several African Americans who were at Hanford during WWII.
• S. L. Sanger and Craig Wollner, Working on the Bomb: an Oral History of WWII Hanford
(Portland, OR: Portland State University Continuing Education Press, 1995).
• Robert Bauman, “Jim Crow in the Tri-Cities, 1943-1950,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly vol. 96,
no. 3 (Summer 2005): 124-131.
• Robert Bauman, “Teaching Hanford History in the Classroom and in the Field,” The Public
Historian vol. 29, no 4 (Fall 2007): 45-55.
• Katherine Jernigan, “Behind the Gates: An Interracial Perspective of Black and White Youth
Memories of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1950s-1970s” (paper presented at the Proceedings of the
South Carolina Historical Association, May 2013).
• Interview with Dr. Lloyd Quarterman – Nuclear Scientist by Ivan Van Sertima in Ivan Van
Sertima, Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1983).
• Findlay, John M. and Bruce Hevly. Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and the American West.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.
• "Northwest Black Pioneers: A Centennial Tribute, a Century of Success." Tri-Cities,
Wash: Northwest Black Pioneers Centennial Tribute Committee, 1990.
Other Resources:
• The National World War II Museum has an interactive timeline on the history of the Manhattan
Project that includes many primary sources such as Einstein’s 1939 letter to
Roosevelt, http://www.ww2sci-tech.org/timeline/timeline.html.
• “Safe as Mother’s Milk: The Hanford Project” includes a Hanford site map, timeline, declassified
photographs, news reels, and other materials related to the history of Hanford Engineer
Works, http://www.hanfordproject.com/manhattan.html.
• The Atomic Heritage Foundation “Life at Hanford” includes five short audio segments with
accompanying photographs and illustrations on life at
Hanford, http://www.atomicheritage.org/tour-stop/life-hanford#.U9_UJWOJbmh.
• Sites of the Manhattan Project, Manhattan Voices
Project: http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/locations/. The Manhattan Voices Project has
created an interactive map documenting the locations of various sites of the Manhattan Project.
Extensions
N/A
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
6
Common Core Standards
For more information on Common Core Standards, visit http://www.corestandards.org/.
History/Social Studies
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.9
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and
secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and
origin of the information.
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or
secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events
or ideas develop over the course of the text.
Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several
primary and secondary sources.
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and
secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details
to an understanding of the text as a whole.
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or
secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear
the relationships among the key details and ideas.
Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and
secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event,
noting discrepancies among sources.
Next Generation Science Standards
N/A For more information on the Next Generation Science Standards,
visit http://www.nextgenscience.org/.
Prepared by the Center for History of Physics at AIP
7