Bias kept black scientists out of Oak Ridge's atomic bomb work

Adolf Hitler's quest to build a master race drove European scientific talent into the United States' ranks, giving the nation a jump-start on the race to develop the first atomic bomb.

But even as the United States held its arms open to immigrating scientists, many persecuted Jews, it constrained African-Americans who wanted to commit their talents to the war effort.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Oak Ridge, constructed in the segregated South after President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project in 1942.


Source : usatoday