(August 20, 1899 – November 9, 1964) was an American scientist of zoology, biology, and marine biology. She was the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree in zoology.

Born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1899, Young soon moved with her family to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania where she graduated from Burgettstown High School. Her father labored as a coal miner, and her mother initially worked as a housekeeper before disability left her unable to work. The family was poor and most of the time resources were expended in the care of her disabled mother.

Her limited financial resources did not stop Young from being an active member of her community, as she has been noted as being active in community service and arts programs throughout her life. During her time at Howard University, Young was an active member of the Dunbar Players, a university-affiliated drama troupe. Additionally at Howard, Young held a position as President of the Women’s Faculty Club, during which time she met Eleanor Roosevelt in 1935 with whom she continued correspondence. Later, Young continued her community service on the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, one of the first YWCA’s in the United States to serve “Colored” women, as an active member of their social service committee.

Young was a strong advocate for labor rights and racial justice. Following the 1944 murder of a black man by a white bus driver, which was largely ignored, Young was elected secretary of the Durham, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. She also joined the board of directors of the Harriet Tubman YWCA in Durham, a major site of organizing for civil and women’s rights activism, and became an organizer of black workers in the Tobacco Workers International Union (TWIU).

In 2020 Her accomplishments were featured in an article by the BBC entitled;

“How a brilliant biologist was failed by science”

Roger Arliner Young’s brilliance made her the first black woman in the US to hold a doctorate in zoology. But her academic promise was failed by a system too rooted in prejudice to accept her as an equal.

In 1923, when Roger Arliner Young graduated from Howard University with her bachelor’s degree, she scrawled these words next to her photo: “Not failure, but low aim is a crime.” She would live by that maxim for the next decade, making waves in biology and rising through science and academia at a remarkable speed.

Before even earning her master’s degree, Young became the first black woman to publish a paper in the prestigious journal Science, resulting in an international reputation for discovering the structure of Paramecium – a species of water-dwelling single-celled organisms. For this research, her mentor and eminent biologist Ernest Everett Just praised her as a “real genius in zoology”.

Later, as acting head of Howard University’s zoology department, Young broke new ground as the first black woman in the Sigma Xi fraternity for scientists and engineers. She also became the first black woman to conduct research at the internationally renowned Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

 In the early 20th Century, less than 50 years after the end of slavery, it was indeed remarkable that a black woman was able to accomplish such heights. White women in the United States were enrolling in higher education and entering the sciences in unprecedented numbers. But black women continued to be denied such access and opportunity, trailing the entry of white women in the sciences by about 60 years. In her survey of black women science PhDs, historian Wini Warren found that between 1876 and 1969, about 650 black people received doctorates in the natural sciences; only 58 doctorates were held by black women.

Young would become one of them in 1940 – and the first in zoology.