Dr. Joseph L. Graves, Jr. was the first Black PhD in Evolutionary Biology (1988). He's a great example of how being upset at harmful opinions and ideologies can lead one to do great things to overturn them.

So Dr. Graves is extremely accomplished in the genetics field, publishing multiple books and over 60 papers (I'm underestimating). I'm not going to focus on those today. I'm going to focus on what drove him.

As a child, Dr. Graves had to deal with both poverty and racism. He was a child in the early 60s. His parents weren't educated and they wanted to classify him as intellectually disabled. "Coincidentally", many of the black kids ended up classified that way

You'd think that was all Dr. Graves had to deal with, but nope, the racism continued into his academic career.

But beyond personal and scientific excellence, how did Dr. Graves give racists the middle finger? A public letter.

Pseudoscientific racist Nicholas Wade wrote a book claiming there were a few biological races who evolved different levels of intelligence, citing many geneticists.

Dr. Graves reached out to many of the geneticists cited by Nicholas Wade. Many were appalled at the misuse and distortions of their work for racist ideologies. The names weren't minor and their expertise was in no dispute. Imagine having most of your citations calling you out?

I cite this story because it was the first time I had really encountered the debate about scientific racism. A friend of mine cited Wade's book as providing evidence of black intellectual inferiority due to genetics. I found that letter and the funniness of it dissuaded my friend

So to summarize:
- Dr. Graves was angered by the racism he faced.
- He entered Evolutionary Biology in part to fight it
- He excelled in his field while facing racism.
- He poked the racists in the eye.
- EvoBio now soundly rejects race science

Here's an interview with Dr. Graves
http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-01-06.htm

Thanks @brockbahler