Manza Atkinson decided one day during a shift at McDonald’s that he was capable of achieving more in his life.
A conversation with a co-worker put this hard-working, but confused, teenager’s future into clear focus.
“I went to go help my co-worker with the eggs, and he said, ‘Man, what are you doing? I’ve been here for 25 years. Don’t touch my eggs,’” said Atkinson, who found himself flipping hamburgers after being suspended from his North Carolina high school for defending himself during a fight.
“That day I said, ‘This is not who I want to be.’”
Instead of a career in fast food service, Atkinson recommitted himself to academics and earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Iowa in July 2011. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.
It took time for Atkinson to change the course of his life because encounters with teachers and classmates had led him to believe that black people have no business being in school.
That sentiment impacted the teenager during an advanced geometry class in which he was the only African-American student in the seventh grade at his California school.
“My Caucasian peer would tell me ‘nigger’ jokes that his father had told him,” Atkinson said. “One day he told me one of those jokes, and the teacher looks at me and yells, ‘Why are you interrupting my class and how did you get in here?’ It was as if I did not belong. I was speechless and humiliated.”
A few years later, shortly after his family had moved to North Carolina, Atkinson experienced the African-American side of the same stereotype during a junior high English class.
“I began to do my homework and my African-American peer next to me whispers, ‘Hey man, what are you doing? Homework is for white folks,’” Atkinson said. “After this statement and others, my grades began to fall because I lost confidence in my abilities. I lost my position in the advanced class and most importantly I let others define my identity.”
But after the moment at McDonald’s, Atkinson adopted a by-any-means-necessary work ethic. His father, who left for work as an industrial engineer every day at 4:45 a.m. and returned home at 6 p.m., was his role model.
“I made a commitment to myself to strive for excellence in education and to do my best no matter what happens,” said Atkinson, now 30. “I, therefore, have been married to that commitment ever since I made the decision in high school to change my path.”
Even while holding three jobs at one point in high school, Atkinson moved away from the Cs, Ds, and Fs he received as a freshman and sophomore and earned nearly straight As in his final two years.
SROP lays out red carpet
Atkinson had his first glimpse of the University of Iowa when he studied here as a Summer Research Opportunities (SROP) student in 2002. After graduating from North Carolina A&T, he returned to Iowa in 2005 as a Dean’s Graduate Fellow to pursue his doctorate.
With GRE scores that were lower than he would have liked, Atkinson didn’t know if Iowa would admit him into graduate school.
But UI Chemistry Professor Leonard MacGillivray, his mentor in the SROP program, had remained in contact with Atkinson. MacGillivray saw something in him that went beyond test scores.
“He has a curiosity for science. He has a lot of cross interests. He’s interested in biology, he’s interested in chemistry,” MacGillivray said. “He’s willing to go ahead with unusual experiments and his curiosity drives him to do it right away.
“I told him there are two kinds of researchers. If you’re Lewis and Clark, you are the explorer. When they explore, they set up communities and cities. Then there are the settlers. You want to be an explorer when it comes to research.”
Atkinson credits the SROP program — specifically staff members Diana Bryant and Joe Henry and Professor MacGillivray — for helping him get into graduate school at Iowa.
“It opened the door for me to be here. Actually, it laid out the red carpet for me,” Atkinson said. “Every day, my advisor was feeding me great information. (MacGillivray) taught me lessons on how to present my research and interpret it. That relationship never died. We kept in communication, we kept in contact.”
In June, Atkinson was lead author on a research paper that was published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, titled “Crystal engineering rescues a solution organic synthesis in a co-crystallization that confirms the configuration of a molecular ladder,” represents the first application of a relative configuration of a small-molecule diastereomer generated in a solution-phase organic synthesis.
One month later, Atkinson successfully defended his dissertation, “Fundamentals and Applications of Co-Crystal Methodologies: Reactivity, Structure Determination, and Mechanochemistry.”
During the question-and-answer portion of his dissertation defense, committee members prefaced their comments with statements such as “Soon-to-be-called Dr. Atkinson” and “This was eloquently spoken in your presentation and written in the thesis.”
Earning his Ph.D. carries great significance for Atkinson.
“I feel like I’m in the club. I feel very humbled,” he said.
It has been important for Manza to show his parents, Willie and Jacqueline Atkinson, who remain strong influences in his life, his commitment to academic excellence, particularly during his turbulent high school times.
Parents provide strong support system
Manza’s father attended a secondary school and had to use second-hand resources that his white counterparts didn’t, while his mother was the first student to integrate her high school in Lillington. N.C. His father and mother met and graduated from a segregated high school in Raleigh, N.C.
Despite the inequalities of the educational system, Atkinson’s parents both graduated from college — Willie with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering and Jacqueline with a Bachelor of Science degree in history.
“My parents believed that whatever they were teaching me at school, they would ‘teach me double,’” Atkinson said, referring to a statement originated at Richard B. Harrison High School in Selma. N.C. — an award-winning segregated school.
“Just in case I got a chance to further my education, I would be ready.”
Atkinson’s parents were committed to establishing a positive African-American “identity” in their son, highlighting success stories of people who were once slaves but rose to great heights as kings, queens, scientists, and philosophers.
Their efforts began when they gave him the name Manza Battle Joshua Atkinson at birth. The name Manza is in honor of Mansa Musa, King of the Mali Empire in West Africa in the 14th century. Battle was the middle name of his grandfather on his mother’s side of the family.
”We were feeding him nothing but positive things about himself. We always impressed upon him that he was somebody,” Willie Atkinson said. “When he’d run into those obstacles in junior high and high school we would always tell him to find a way to go around them because you are somebody.”
Manza was reminded of his parents’ lessons during the tough times.
“Here I am with these opportunities, and I didn’t want to let my complete line of ancestors down,” Atkinson said. “I couldn’t let them down after everything they had been through. It’s disrespectful to put those opportunities they worked so hard to create aside.”
The racial stereotypes he encountered during his academic journey only made him stronger.
“The school problems messed with his self-esteem. Young teens go their own way and are in their own world,” Jacqueline Atkinson said. “But Manza stayed true to himself.”