Elbert Frank Cox: First African American PhD in Math

Elbert Frank Cox was born in 1895 in Evansville, Indiana. When he showed remarkable talents in high school mathematics and physics, Cox was directed toward Indiana University where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1917. Along with the three other African American graduates of Indiana that year, Cox had the word “COLORED” printed across his transcript.

Cox later served in the U.S. Army in France during World War I and then returned to pursue a career in teaching as an instructor of mathematics at a high school in Kentucky. In 1922, Cox was awarded a scholarship and enrolled in Cornell University. When Cox’s thesis advisor realized he had the chance to be recognized not only as the first Black in the United States, but as the first Black in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics, he urged Cox to send his thesis to a university in another country so that his status would not be disputed. 

Cox was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Cornell University, 1925). He was later appointed associate professor of mathematics at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where in 1975, the Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund was established to help Black students progress to studying graduate level mathematics.