Dr. Ernest Everett Just
Blood Plasma & Medical Research
1904 - 1950
- Born in Charleston, South Carolina on August 14, 1883.
- At age 13, Ernest entered South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina and attended school for three years.
- He attended Kimball Academy in New Hampshire where he served as editor of the school newspaper and president of the Debate Society.
- Ernest attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire from which he graduated in 1907.
- He received his Ph.D. degree in June 1916.
- Dr. Just became head of Biology, Zoology and Physiology Departments at Howard University.
- He started Howard University's first drama club and was one of the founders of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
- Dr. Just received the first Spingarn Medal from the NAACP on February 12, 1915.
- He traveled to Europe in 1929 to do work at the Zoological Station in Naples, Italy. He did research in Italy and France.
- Dr. Just became the first African American to be invited to be a Visiting Professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, Germany in 1930.
- Dr. Just published The Biology of Cell Surface in 1939; the book explained the special significance of the outer cytoplasm which Dr. Just called
the ectoplasm.
- Dr. Just was briefly held as a prisoner of war by the Nazis when they captured Paris in 1940. He was released and returned to Howard
University to teach.
- Dr. Ernest Everett Just died of severe digestive tract illness on October 27, 1941.