Elbert Frank Cox
December 5, 1895 – November 28, 1969
Mathematician
The first black person in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics (Cornell University, 1925
Elbert Frank Cox was born on December 5, 1895. Elbert Cox’s parents were Eugenia D Talbot and Johnson D Cox who were African Americans. Johnson Cox was the principal of a high school, having taken courses at Evansville College and graduate studies at Indiana University. The district of Evansville, where Elbert was brought up, was racially mixed but schooling was segregated. His family was deeply religious with a love for education. Cox enrolled at Indiana University in September 1913 and became the first to receive a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the university. Cox was also initiated into Kappa Alpha Nu (Kappa Alpha Psi) Fraternity Inc. He was an American mathematician who became the first black person in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics (Cornell University, 1925. He spent most of his life as a professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he was known as an excellent teacher. In his honor, the National Association of Mathematicians established the Cox Talbot Address, which is annually delivered at the NAM’s national meetings.
His accomplishment helped to make it possible for other black mathematicians, such as Dudley Welcon Woodard, William Waldron Shiefflin Claytor, Marjorie Lee Browne, Evelyn Boyd Granville and David Blackwell, to receive their doctorates from American universities
Elbert and Beulah had met in 1921 and had courted for six years before being married. She was a teacher at an elementary school and worked with Cox’s brother Avalon. He and Beulah Cox had four children: James born in 1928, Eugene Kaufman born 1930, Elbert Lucien born 1933, and Kenneth, born in 1935 but died at the age of 17 months.Eugene Kaufman Cox became an architect, while Elbert Lucien Cox followed his father and served as Associative Vice President at Howard University
During World War II, Cox taught engineering science and war management from 1942 to 1944.
During his life, Cox published two articles. He expanded on the work Niels Nörlund had done on Euler polynomials as a solution to a particular difference equation. Cox used generalized Euler polynomials and the generalized Boole summation formula to expand on the Boole summation formula. He also studied a number of specialized polynomials as solutions for certain differential equations. In his other paper, published in 1947, he mathematically compared three systems of grading.
After Cox retired he hoped to be able to return to research and writing about mathematics. However, his health was not sufficiently good to let him achieve that. He died at Cafritz Memorial Hospital after a short illness on November 28, 1969, in Washington, D.C., USA.
The National Association of Mathematicians established the Cox–Talbot Address in his honor, which is annually delivered at the NAM’s national meetings. The Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund, which is used to help black students pursue studies, is also named after him.
Mathematician Talitha Washington championed Cox leading to the November 2006 unveiling of a plaque in Evansville commemorating his pioneering achievement.
Howard University set up the Elbert F Cox Scholarship Fund in 1975 to help Black students progress to studying graduate level mathematics. The National Association of Mathematicians honoured Cox with the inauguration of the annual Cox-Talbot Address in 1980.