Percy Julian, whose grandparents were slaves, could not get a high school education in his home state of Alabama in the early 1900s. So his parents put him on a train to Newcastle, IN, so he could attend DePauw University to catch up on his high school classes and then go on to earn a degree in Chemistry. He excelled in the field of organic chemistry, going on to work on developing a plant-based treatment for glaucoma and beating a British scientist to the correct formula.  However, even after earning a doctorate in Chemistry in Austria and many other accomplishments, he could not get a job in the United States.  No university would hire a black man to teach white students. Julian did not allow these setbacks to deter him from his passion, though. This biography is solid, but basic. The author’s three page digression to explain the racial situation in the Deep South in the early 1900s was simplistic as well as distracting. A timeline and list of additional resources are provided.