Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)
Mathematician, Inventor
Born on November 9, 1731 near Elliott City, Maryland, Benjamin Banneker was one of America's greatest intellectuals and scientists. Benjamin Banneker was an essayist, inventor, mathematician, and astronomer. Because of his dark skin and great intellect he was called the "sable genius." Benjamin Banneker was a self-taught mathematician and astronomer. While still a youth he made a wooden clock which kept accurate time past the date that Banneker died. This clock is believed to be the first clock wholly made in America. In 1791, he served on a project to make a survey for the District of Columbia, helping to design the layout for our Nation's capital. Deeply interested in natural phenomena, Banneker started publishing an almanac in 1791 and continued its publication until 1802. He published a treatise on bees, did a mathematical study on the cycle of the seventeen-year locust, and became a pamphleteer for the anti-slavery movement. He was internationally known for his accomplishments and became an advisor to President Thomas Jefferson. He died on his farm on October 9, 1906.
If an honest history of the deep South is ever written, Dr. George Washington Carver will stand out as one of the truly great men of his time. Born of slave parents in 1860 in Diamond, Missouri, Dr. Carver almost single-handedly revolutionized southern agriculture. From his small laboratory on the campus of Tuskegee Institute flowed hundreds of discoveries and products from the once neglected peanut. From the peanut Dr. Carver discovered meal, instant and dry coffee, bleach, tar remover, wood filler, metal polish, paper, ink, shaving cream, rubbing oil, linoleum, synthetic rubber, and plastics. From the soybean he obtained flour, breakfast food, and milk. It is highly doubtful if any person has done as much for southern agriculture as Dr. Carver. Dr. Carver died in 1943 and was buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute. On July 17, 1960 the George Washington Carver National Monument was dedicated at Dr. Carver's birth site. This was the first U.S. federal monument dedicated to a African-American.
No single title does credit to the prodigious talents of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. Born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he has been labeled an educator, author, historian, sociologist, philosopher, poet, leader and radical. In 1903 his famous book Souls of Black Folks was published. Perhaps his greatest fame came from his debate with Booker T. Washington over the type of education needed by African Americans. Washington stressed vocational education, whereas DuBois insisted on training in the liberal arts and in the humanities. He was one of the founders of the NAACP and editor of its famous journal The Crisis. He was also the first Black to receive a doctoral degree from Harvard University. In 1919 he initiated the Pan African Conferences in Paris. On behalf of the NAACP at the United Nations, he tried to get a firm anti-colonial commitment from the United States in 1945 and in 1947 presented a protest against the Jim Crow laws. His theme in his later years was always economic democracy and the channeling of Black Power through a unified Black society. He died on October 27,1963 in Accra, Ghana where he had established his new home.
Carter Godwin Woodson, the father of "Black History," was born on December 19, 1875 in New Canton, Virginia. Despite the pioneering efforts of many Black writers and scholars, the systematic treatment of Black history was not achieved until 1915 when Carter G. Woodson, an ex-coal miner and school teacher, organized the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Over the years, the still thriving association has published many important volumes in the field of Black history. In 1916, Dr. Woodson started The Journal of Negro History, a scholarly repository of research which is used by students of history throughout the world. He initiated the observance of Black History Week in 1926. Eleven years later the association began the publication of The Negro History Bulletin, a more popular vehicle for disseminating the findings for scholars and researchers. "Dr. Woodson firmly believed that the achievements of Blacks properly set forth will crown him as a factor in the early human progress and a maker of modern civilization." His life and work are eloquent testimonies to that belief. He died on April 13, 1950.
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African American Inventors
Famous African American Inventors
Elijah McCoy
Elijah McCoy (1843–1929) invented an oil-dripping cup for trains.
Fast Fact: Other inventors tried to copy McCoy's oil-dripping cup. But none of the other cups worked as well as his, so customers started asking for "the real McCoy." That's where the expression comes from.
Granville T. Woods (1856–1910) invented a train-to-station communication system.
Fast Fact: Woods left school at age 10 to work and support his family.
The Multiplex Telegraph
Granville T. Woods (1856-1910) is known to many as "The Black Edison," because both were great inventors who came from disadvantaged childhoods. But unlike Edison, Woods was considered fortunate to receive an education to help him on the road to his inventions. In the late nineteenth century few African-American children ever saw the inside of a classroom.
Woods further educated himself by working in railroad machine shops and steel mills, and by reading about electricity. He often had friends check out library books for him, since African-Americans were excluded from many libraries at the time. Woods managed to scrape together enough knowledge of electrical engineering to invent "telegraphony," a process that was later purchased by Alexander Graham Bell's company.
Allowing operators to send and receive messages more quickly than before, telegraphony combined features of both the telephone and telegraph. The Bell Company's purchase of this invention enabled Woods to become a full-time inventor.
Among his later inventions was the multiplex telegraph. A success in the powerful railroad industry of the late nineteenth century, the device not only helped dispatchers locate trains, but also allowed moving trains to communicate by telegraph. This invention was so useful that Woods found himself fighting patent suits filed by none other than Thomas Edison. Woods eventually won, but Edison continued to pursue the telegraph by offering Woods a lucrative partnership in one of Edison's businesses. Woods refused, preferring to be independent.
George Washington Carver (1860–1943) invented peanut butter and 400 plant products!
Fast Fact: Carver was born a slave. He didn't go to college until he was 30.
Garrett Morgan
Garrett Morgan (1877–1963) invented the gas mask.
Fast Fact: Morgan also invented the first traffic signal.
Otis Boykin
Otis Boykin (1920–1982) invented the electronic control devices for guided missiles, IBM computers, and the pacemaker.
Fast Fact: Boykin invented 28 different electronic devices.
Lonnie G. Johnson
Lonnie G. Johnson (1949–) invented the world-famous watergun, the Supersoaker.
Fast Fact: Johnson's company just came out with a new Nerf ball toy gun.
Profile
Lonnie Johnson is president and founder of Johnson Research and Development Co., Inc., a technology development company, and its spin off companies, Excellatron Solid State, LLC; Johnson Electro-Mechanical Systems, LLC; and Johnson Real Estate Investments, LLC.
Johnson holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, an M.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering, and an honorary Ph.D. in Science from Tuskegee University. Upon graduation, he worked as a research engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and then joined the U. S. Air Force, serving as Acting Chief of the Space Nuclear Power Safety Section at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1979, he left the Air Force to accept a position as Senior Systems Engineer at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where he worked on the Galileo mission to Jupiter. Returning to the Air Force in 1982, he served as an Advanced Space Systems Requirements Officer at Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and as Chief of the Data Management Branch, SAC Test and Evaluation Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He was awarded the Air Force Achievement Medal and the Air Force Commendation Medal on two different occasions. In 1987, he returned to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he worked on the Mars Observer project and was the fault protection engineer during the early stages of the Cassini (Saturn) project. He was responsible for ensuring that single point spacecraft failures would not result in loss of the mission. During his nine year career with JPL, he received multiple achievement awards from NASA for his work in spacecraft system design.
In 1989, Johnson formed his own engineering firm and licensed his most famous invention, the Super Soaker® water gun, to Larami Corporation. Two years later, the Super Soaker®, generated over $200 million in retail sales, and became the number one selling toy in America. Larami Corporation was eventually purchased by Hasbro Corporation, the second largest toy manufacturer in the world. Over the years, Super Soaker® sales have totaled close to one billion dollars. Currently, Lonnie Johnson holds over 80 patents, with over 20 more pending, and is the author of several publications on spacecraft power systems.
Two of Johnson’s companies, Excellatron Solid State and Johnson Electro-Mechanical Systems (JEMS), are developing revolutionary energy technology.
Excellatron is introducing a new generation of rechargeable battery technology which has the potential to revolutionize the battery industry. Providing a source of energy many times that which exists today in a substantially reduced size, this technology will solve many of the problems related to technology mobility in the future.
JEMS has developed a thermodynamic energy conversion technology that converts thermal energy to electrical energy with significant advantages over alternative systems. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the global energy market when fully commercialized.
Articles on Lonnie Johnson have appeared in numerous publications including Time Magazine, the New York Times, and Inventor’s Digest. Johnson serves on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Alliance for Children, an organization which serves as an informed and influential voice to protect the rights and interests of Georgia’s less fortunate children. He is a Board member of the Hank Aaron "Chasing the Dream" Foundation, and has served on the Board of Directors of the Commonwealth National Bank.
