Award-winning documentary outlines the contributions of black scientists

Walter McAfee was a mathematician and physicist that calculated the speed of the moon in the 1940s, but because he was an African-American he didn't receive credit until years later.

McAfee's trials and tribulations, as well as those of other black scientists and radar technicians during World War II whose contributions went unnoticed in the Jim Crow period, are unearthed in a documentary by Framingham State college professor Robert Johnson Jr.

The film received the Best Documentary award at the 30th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival & Market a few weeks ago, and for Johnson, it recognized his efforts to bring forth a little-known story.

"We're very conscious of the contributions of black soldiers, but no so much of the work done by African-Americans who made scientific discoveries before and during World War II," said Johnson, chair of the communications arts department. "It's a story that hadn't been told."

Based on a series of oral histories conducted by Johnson in the 1990s, the film includes the stories of McAfee and other six scientists who worked at Fort Monmouth's Camp Evans in New Jersey, from 1940 to 1959. Camp Evans was the home of U.S. Army radar development. The film combines personal memoir with archival footage, still photography and graphic and first-hand accounts.

The 60-minute film, "No Short Climb: ‘Race Workers’ & America's Defense Technology" showcases the men's struggles as well as their contributions to World War II defense technology.

The story of McAfee, who is the most well known of the seven men profiled, is told in great detail in the film. As a member of U.S. Army's Project Diana in Camp Evans, he helped determine if a high frequency radio signal could penetrate the earth's outer atmosphere, a development without which men could have not walked on the moon. When the scientific discovery was made public in 1946, he wasn't mentioned and only many years later was his work recognized.

William J. Jones, an engineer educated at Tufts and a member of the U.S. Army Electronics Command, played a key role in making the systems for missiles "jam proof," after he flew in a fighter bomber airplane and realized radio waves from police stations and radio stations were causing missiles blow up because the waves were interfering in the missiles' flight path. Jones later went to work with Werner Von Braun in the early space program.

Also included in the film is Harold Tate, a radar systems Engineer and a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps Electronics Laboratory. Tate and Jones were victims of the McCarthy era.

For Johnson, who wrote, produced and directed the film, the best part of the film was meeting all those unheralded black professionals and discovering what they have done in the midst of widespread discrimination. All of the people interviewed had stories of how they were refused accommodation in hotel rooms or denied service in restaurants when they traveled across the country, and how they were discriminated by some white colleagues at work.

"They were living a racially-segregated society, and they had few opportunities to explore," said Johnson. "War created opportunities for educated people of color, and what they did was a footnote of a footnote to history, but it was a story that needed to be out there."

It's story that Johnson financed with money out of his own pocket. Though he received a grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission to do the oral history projects, on which the movie was based, Johnson spent nearly $65,000 out of his own pocket.

Johnson, who moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts 15 years ago, has produced more than 20 history of science documentaries, and looks forward to his next project, which will be a personal one: the story of his parents' love. Johnson thought of the idea after he discovered love letters written by his parents dated from the 1920s and 1930s after his mother died a few years ago.

"She was a Roman Catholic upper-middle class woman, and he was a Southern Baptist man from the countryside," he said. "They moved earth and heaven to get married. It was a very interesting story, and it was a discovery. That's why I like to do documentaries, to discover something."

Those interested in purchasing the DVD can send a check o money order to "No Short Climb" P.O. Box 366154, Hyde Park MA 02136. Price for individuals is $14.95, and $59.95 for institutions.

For more information check the Web site www.noshortclimb.com