Clarence "Skip" A. Ellis was the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science. Born in poverty on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, Ellis's mother struggled alone to raise five children. Ellis kept to himself, avoiding gang violence that was locally rampant. At fifteen years of age, Ellis secured a job at a local company to help pay family bills. He was assigned as a security guard, and specifically told not to touch the company's new computer that was expensive and not commonly seen in 1958. During idle times Ellis studied the computer's manuals. One day, an important computer project had run out of new punch cards, then used to enter data into computers. Ellis knew how to reuse old cards by changing settings on the computer. He turned the failing project into a success, and the computer experience changed his life.

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