JoAnn Marie Johnson, age 11, of Springfield, Ore., for her question:
WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE BLACK AND OTHERS WHITE?
Skin that covers our bodies has two layers: an inner layer called the dermis, which comes from the Greek word for skin, and an outer layer called the epidermis, from the Greek word meaning upon.
The epidermis is not alive and bits rub off every time we bathe. More, however, is constantly being made by the dermis.
Looking at the skin with a microscope, we see the structure is made up of numbers of cells arranged in layers. Among these cells is coloring matter called pigment. It is this quantity of coloring matter which causes a complexion to be called either dark or fair.
In fair people, there is very little pigment in the skin. Dark people, especially those with brown eyes and black hair, have a great deal of skin pigment.
People of some races have very little skin pigmentation, while those in others have a great deal.
Nobody knows why a black man's skin has so much pigmentation, since the origin of the races is lost in history and unknown to us. We do know, however, that black men have been living in the hottest parts of the earth, in places where white men find it unhealthy and uncomfortable to live. It seems that the black races have developed some special power of resisting the climate and the diseases found in that part of the world.
It seems very possible that, as a result of this, it would come about that only those who were black could live and survive in the sweltering areas.
In the course of time, it seems; there could be nobody except black people in such hot places, a black race being produced by nature's selecting the blackest people as those best fitted to survive there.
It does seem possible that blackness, which is nothing more than a large amount of pigmentation in the skin, came about as a result of continued exposure to the tropical sun.
A great many scholars believe that black was the original color of the human race, and that the white, yellow, red and brown races developed later. In any case, it appears that the color of human skin resulted from certain powers of human beings to adapt themselves to the conditions of the climate in which they lived.