David Blackwell originially expected to become a school teacher like his grandfather. However, he was interested in Statistics and got his Ph.D. at age 22. He taught at Howard University for 10 years, and then became a professor of Statistics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1954.

He has made contributions to many fields of mathematics, including probability theory, game theory, set theory, and dynamic programming. In 1965, Blackwell was the first African-American elected to the National Academy of Sciences.