In a lifetime of continual striving, Percy L. Julian succeeded against the prejudices and discrimination of his time to become a pathbreaking synthetic chemist, a successful industrial research director, and a wealthy businessman. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 11, 1899, the son of a railway clerk and the grandson of slaves. From the beginning, he did well in school, but there was no public high school for African-Americans in Montgomery. Julian graduated from an all-black normal school inadequately prepared for college.  Even so, in the fall of 1916, at the age of 17, he was accepted as a subfreshman at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. This meant that in addition to his regular college courses he took remedial classes at a nearby high school. He also had to work in order to pay his college expenses. Nevertheless, he excelled. Julian was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with a B.A. degree in 1920 as valedictorian of his class. His chosen path of chemistry would prove to be a rocky one. With no encouragement to continue his education, based on the lack of future job opportunities, Julian found a position as instructor in chemistry at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee.

After two years at Fisk, Julian won an Austin Fellowship to Harvard and received his M.A. degree in 1923. Again, he faced disappointment when no job offer was forthcoming. In succeeding years, he served on the staff of predominantly black institutions first at West Virginia State College, and in 1928, as head of the department of chemistry at Howard University, Washington, D.C.  In 1929, Julian received a Rockefeller Foundation grant and the chance to earn his doctorate in chemistry. He elected to study natural products chemistry with Ernst Spïth at the University of Vienna. He received his Ph.D. in 1931 and returned to Howard, accompanied by his friend, Josef Pikl. After two years there, internal politics forced them to leave. In 1933, through the efforts of his former professor William M. Blanchard, Julian returned to DePauw University as a research fellow. He directed research projects for senior and graduate students. It was here in Minshall Laboratory in 1935, in collaboration with Pikl, that he completed the research that would result in the total synthesis of physostigmine. This work established Julian's reputation as a world-renowned chemist at the age of 36.

Despite his accomplishments as a recognized and published researcher, Percy Julian was denied a faculty position at DePauw. Frustrated in his efforts to gain an academic post, Julian turned to industry. One research job fell through because of a town law forbidding "housing of a Negro overnight." Then, in 1936, a door opened when Julian was offered a position as director of research for soya products for Glidden in Chicago. Over the next 18 years, the results of his soybean protein research produced numerous patents and successful products for Glidden, among them a paper coating and a fire-retardant foam used widely in WWII to extinguish gasoline fires. His biomedical research made it possible to produce large quantities of synthetic progesterone and hydrocortisone at a low cost.

In 1953, he established the Julian Laboratories, a successful enterprise that he sold for more than $2 million in 1961. He later formed the Julian Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization. Among his many lifetime honors was election, in 1973, to the National Academy of Sciences. He was also widely recognized as a steadfast advocate for human rights. Julian continued his private research studies and served as a consultant to major pharmaceutical companies until his death on April 19, 1975.