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Roy Clay Sr. Italic text

During the beginning time period of the study of Computer Science around 1940s and 1950s, discrimination and racism were also steadily increasing. Based on many of the structural imbalances within the Western societies of the world, African Americans are rarely represented as explorers of computer science. He faced discrimination directly from police in his hometown, Kinloch, Missouri. Given the circumstances, Clay Sr., Roy still managed to push passed the obstacles he faced whilst growing up during the Jim Crow-era. He believed there was a necessity to receiving a prominent education and went to St.Louis Univeristy in 1950 setting a record of being the first African American to graduate from the institution. Graduating was also an obstacle considering he could not get a job considering he was still considered a professional negro, he found it hard to attain a job until he received a position with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. While he was at the laboratory, he created his first computer program and he spiraled in his increase in skills on the computer. He went from working with applications on the computer to developing [|operating systems]. His importance in the computer science field was evident and led him to take up leadership roles. From the vice mayor role he took up serving on the Palo Alto City Council as the first African American to ever be elected from 1976-1977, to ROD-L Electronics, the company he founded in 1977. He went on to work with HP and developed the software for the [|HP 2116A] computer and was the first HP research and Development Computer Group.

He had a bigger vision for Silicon Valley. The main vision was to diversify the people within the Silicon community by establishing programs which is set up to help African Americans get into Silicon Valley. He believed that there is success in integrating the work space and also giving historically black colleges a chance to provide them with educated recruits. Roy L. Clay Sr. “'What integration has done is caused people to know other people,' In the end,Once they know each other, prejudices fall away in the light of experience.." (Forbe's Oracle).

Citations: - Everipedia. “Roy Clay Sr.” Everipedia, 6 Nov. 2017, everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/roy-clay-sr/#education. - https://www.mercurynews.com/?returnUrl=https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/28/roy-l-clay-sr-how-a-silicon-valley-tech-pioneer-came-close-to-being-michael-brown/?clearUserState=true - Henderson, Diedtra. “Before Bill Gates, There Was Roy L. Clay Sr.” The Root, The Root, 12 Jan. 2017, www.theroot.com/before-bill-gates-there-was-roy-l-clay-sr-1790890151. - “Roy L. Clay: The Godfather of Silicon Valley.” Black History: Special Delivery!!, 29 Feb. 2016, blackmail4u.com/2016/02/28/roy-l-clay-the-godfather-of-silicon-valley/. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2015/02/19/from-ferguson-to-silicon-valley-a-black-pioneer-gives-back/#33662b6e30a1