Black History: Special Delivery!!

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Jesse Ernest Wilkins, Jr. (1923-2011) was a renowned African American mathematician and physicist. He worked at the University of Chicago on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was a scientific research and development initiative to support nuclear weapons production. It was a partnership between the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In solidarity with 70 other Manhattan Project scientists, Wilkins signed Leo Szilard’s petition to President Truman. This petition sought to alert President Truman and the U.S. government of the harm that could be done by deploying the atomic bomb. However, the President nor the Secretary of War received the petition before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Wilkins, along with many other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, was interested in how the use of atomic energy might be applied peacefully. 

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