Being constrained by bandwidth of this website, I can only site a few examples of how diversity has benefited this country. There are literally thousands of examples.
Contributions to our space program;
Katherine Johnson an African-American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. manned spaceflights. Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those of astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo lunar lander and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program.
Contributions to Medicine;
Henrietta Lacks. was an African-American woman who unwittingly contributed to medical science and paved the way for current day cancer treatments and more. Henrietta Lacks was a victim of two things, cancer and medicine. At the time, The Johns Hopkins Hospital was one of only a few hospitals to treat poor African-Americans. Dr. Gey, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins, discovered that Mrs. Lacks’ cancer cells were unlike any of the others he had ever seen: where other cells would die, Mrs. Lacks' cells doubled every 20 to 24 hours. He never got the consent of Henrietta Lacks or her family to use and to sell these cells to researchers all over the world. Today, these incredible cells— nicknamed "HeLa" cells, from the first two letters of her first and last names — are used to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on the growth of cancer cells without experimenting on humans. They have been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome, to learn more about how viruses work, and played a crucial role in the development of the polio vaccine. Although Mrs. Lacks ultimately passed away on October 4, 1951, at the age of 31, her cells continue to impact the world.
Mario J. Molina was the first Mexican-born scientist to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Mario Molina discovered the serious environmental threat posed by chlorofluorocarbon gases (CFCs). Along with fellow chemist Sherwood Rowland, Molina found that CFCs—chemicals commonly used as refrigerants, and colloquially known as Freon—released into the atmosphere were contributing to ozone depletion.
Albert Baez, father of singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña, Mexican-American physicist Albert Baez was the co-inventor of the X-ray reflection microscope. Though he created the device, which allows scientist to examine living cells, in 1948, it’s still considered a crucial scientific tool to this day.
Ted Taylor, born in Mexico City was a Nuclear physicist who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1940s and 1950s, where he helped design small nuclear weapons and reactors, as well as the Super Oralloy Bomb, which was the largest pure fission bomb ever detonated.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was the predominant leader in the Civil Rights Movement to end racial segregation and discrimination in America during the 1950s and 1960s and a leading spokesperson for nonviolent methods of achieving social change. Happy Birthday!
Michael Jordan - does anyone need to say any more about Michael Jordan?
Tiger Woods - same thing
