 Don Lyons "It's OK To Be Smart" and "Increasing Science Scholarships At Historically Black Colleges and Increasing Minority Participation in Life Sciences." |
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Although not a fraternity member, Mr. Lyons galvanized support of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity at their Cleveland national conclave. His outstanding efforts were lauded by the Omicron Chi Chapter of the fraternity with the presentation of its prestigious Perseverance Award at their 1995 Founders Day celebration. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Don moved with his family to New York City when he was four years old. Cornell Lyons, the family head, was a member of The Three Businessmen of Rhythm, the internationally known tap dancing ensemble. With appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and at Radio City Music Hall, the elder Lyons took tap to Germany where he established a dance studio. Less successful to begin with, Don Lyons was a high school drop out. Backbreaking labor and low wages convinced him, however, to earn a high school diploma and a college degree. While working full time, he attended Upsala College and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. Don Lyons is president of Lane One, Inc., a multi-ethnic consulting firm. Lane One designs and improves processes to handle daily work flow, trains people to understand the importance of organization, and helps clients improve processes and services to meet job and assignments specifications and requirements. Lane One also provides museum-quality, African-American exhibits to corporations. They are:
Don Lyons has appeared on radio and nationwide television. Articles about him have appeared in YES (Youth Excited About Success) Magazine, The Oracle (the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Magazine), The Philadelphia Inquirer, The City News, and countless other newspapers across the United States.
Dr. Ernest Everett Just is recognized as one of the United States' most distinguished biological scientists. He formulated new concepts of cell life and metabolism, and revolutionized thinking about the nature of living substances. Dr. Just also initiated pioneer investigations of egg fertilization. Ernest Everett Just was born August 14, 1883 in Charleston, South Carolina. His father was a dock worker and his mother a school teacher. Just's father died when he was only four, and he was forced to start working as a field hand. When he finished high school at 17, Mrs. Just made a courageous and farsighted decision to send him north for further schooling. Just graduated from Kimball Union Academy, in New Hampshire, as valedictorian of his class despite the gross racial injustice that he faced. He entered Dartmouth College, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, received degrees in both history and biology, and was the only student in his class to graduate magna cum laude. It was at Dartmouth that he decided to become a research biologist specializing in cytology, the study of cells. In 1912, Ernest Everett Just became head of the Biology Department at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a position he held until his death. He also became a member of the faculty at Howard School of Medicine where he headed the Department of Physiology. He received a Ph.D. degree in Zoology, magna cum laude, from the University of Chicago in 1916. During his professional lifetime, Dr. Just regularly spent summers as a research fellow at the world famous Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts (www.mbl.edu)where he collaborated with numerous colleagues on various projects and established a reputation as one of the world's leading scientists in the fields of zoology and marine biology. He endeavored to contribute to the body of facts, concepts and theories by improving his understanding of cell life. In his book, The Biology of Cell Surface , Dr. Just put forth the theory that the surface of the cell (cell membrane) is equally important to the life of a cell as its nucleus. He felt that if the function of normal and abnormal cells were understood, science would be armed with the knowledge needed to treat many of the ills that plague humans: cancer, leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and other diseases involving abnormal cell life. Dr. Just also blazed new trails in designing techniques for collecting eggs and sperm cells, as well as laboratory methods of working with cells. He became an authority on identification procedures which ensure that cells used in experimentation are normal, healthy cells. This research is reflected in his book, Basic Methods for Experiments on Eggs of Marine Animals . Ernest Everett Just received many honors. For his personal accomplishments and noteworthy contributions to his professional field, he received in 1915 and at the age of 31 the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the NAACP's highest award for individual achievement. Although he was never invited to conduct research studies at any of America's notable laboratories, Dr. Just was invited to serve as guest researcher at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biology in Germany, considered, at that time, the world's greatest academy of physics, chemistry and biology. He received similar invitations from the Sorbonne in Paris and the Zoological Station in Naples, Italy. Dr. Just was a contributing editor to various scientific journals and published more than sixty research papers during his career. Along with Edgar Amos Love, Oscar J. Cooper, and Frank Coleman, he was a co-founder of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. It was on Friday evening, November 17, 1911 in Ernest Everett Just's office at Howard University that the four men gave birth to the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. Dr. Just died of cancer, at age 58, on October 27, 1941.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 1996 story (reprinted with permission):
By William R. Macklin, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER You say you've never heard of Ernest Everett Just? Join the herd. Even among obscure scientists doing arcane research, Just would appear to be second-string - an early 20th-century biologist who died at age 58 after spending most of his career thinking deep thoughts about cell surfaces. A better subject for the tie-breaking question on College Bowl than a candidate for a United States postage stamp, it would seem. But Just has juice. Members of the influential college fraternity he founded lionize him, scholars extoll his achievements, and New Jersey businessman Don Lyons seems to reserve a place of honor for Just somewhere between God and Thomas Alva Edison. "How can it be that nobody knows about this man of such achievement?'' sighs Lyons. "His work on abnormal cell life has a direct relationship to leukemia and sickle-cell anemia and cancer. He was a forerunner in the field.'' Lyons' enthusiasm doesn't end with idle adoration. For 5 1/2 years he crusaded for a postage stamp honoring the African American scientist. Today, he'll touch the holy grail when the Postal Service honors Just as the 19th selection in its Black Heritage Stamp series. "It just didn't register why I didn't know and other people didn't know about Dr. Just,'' says Lyons. "I figured it just shouldn't be allowed to be. What can I do to rectify this oversight? It occurred to me, why not an American stamp?'' On face value, Just would hardly seem prime material for a Black Heritage stamp. Since its start in 1978, the series has focused almost entirely on high-profile historical figures, including Harriet Tubman and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Even Lyons, a history buff with a love of African American trivia, admits that he had never heard of the scientist before 1984, when he read The Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just. The biography by MIT historian Kenneth Manning convinced him that Just was "one of the best kept secrets in the country,'' says Lyons' wife, Lanetta. In any case, getting a stamp in Just's honor meant long hours of phone-calling, letter-writing and arm-twisting to convince the Postal Service and the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee that the scientist warranted philatelic consideration. "He was constantly on the phone,'' says Lanetta Lyons. "Our bills were astronomical. Stamp, stamp, stamp. It was bizarre. But it was something he had to do, so I supported him the best I could.'' Before it was stamp, stamp, stamp, it was scholarship, scholarship, scholarship. Lyons, vice president of Lane One Inc., a management consulting firm in East Brunswick, N.J., tried to get a number of colleges to set up scholarships for African American science students in Just's honor. He tried Princeton (because it's in New Jersey), Dartmouth (because it's Just's alma mater) and Upsala College in East Orange (because its Lyons' alma mater). Princeton turned him down (because Just wasn't a graduate), but Dartmouth and Upsala got on board. Stamps or scholarships, Just is entirely deserving, says MIT's Manning. "His achievements in biology were extraordinary, as was his approach to life. He believed in a universal standard of excellence, not one for blacks and one for whites. He was an extraordinary pioneer.'' Manning says that while most biologists were probing at nuclei in a fruitful but predictable effort to better understand how cells influence the growth of organisms, Just, who was born in 1883, was studying cell surfaces, and in the process, creating the framework for contemporary cancer research. His studies of the reproductive habits of marine invertebrates were groundbreaking and helped earn Just the first Spingarn Medal awarded by the NAACP for achievement. None of it came easy. He may have been "the Black Apollo of Science'' but in Jim Crow America that didn't stop people from mistreating him. At Dartmouth, Just, who was born in South Carolina, was the only member of the class of 1907 to graduate magna cum laude. He wasn't invited to speak at the commencement. Hired to teach at historically black Howard University, he complained that many white scholars had snubbed him. Despite his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago, Just had trouble getting invitations to scientific conventions. Frank R. Lillie, director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., where Just did much of his aquatic research, befriended the young scientist but, as a white man, couldn't understand or address his frustrations. Just gradually withdrew from American academic circles and began working more and more in Europe. A dignified presence, Just developed a popularity in Europe that transcended the sciences. Even the name of Manning's biography refers to the scientist's popularity there. "Some women at Naples declared that he was their black Apollo,'' says Manning. But Just's private life was no less traumatic than his scientific career. He was a darling of the black upper class in the United States, but his marriage to a socialite ended in a bitter divorce. The ink was barely dry on the decree when Just, who had been working in Europe, returned to the United States with his new wife, a German. Some historians speculate that this marriage diluted Just's support among African Americans, leaving him with few advocates on either side of the color line. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1941. Lyons says he had little trouble finding advocates for the stamp. Scholars and scientists at MIT, Harvard, the American Society of Cell Biology and the American Medical Association (Just served on the faculty at Howard's medical school) agreed to write letters of support. Lyons even wrangled an endorsement out of Sen. Strom Thurmond - not exactly a leading proponent of civil rights, but a South Carolinian who apparently felt obliged to support a native son. "I say Strom Thurmond and people say, 'What?' '' laughs Lyons. Many letters came from members of the influential Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. Just is a founder, and when Lyons contacted the fraternity, it launched a program calling for each of its 100,000 members to have 10 friends send a letter of support to the Postal Service. Carter G. Woodson, the first black scientist to appear on a Black Heritage stamp, was also an Omega, says John S. Epps, the fraternity's executive director. Epps said he personally received 2,000 letters of support at his office. Around 100 Omega members are expected to be at Howard University in Washington today for the unveiling of the 32-cent first-class stamp bearing the likeness of Just. Manning will be there; so will Maribel Just Butler, the scientist's daughter. And somewhere nearby will be Don Lyons. But as the speeches roll and the stamp is uncovered, don't expect Lyons to rest easy. "I think that I will go on and keep spreading the word about Dr. Just,'' he says.
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