Black History – Then and Now

Writer: by Dr Saër Maty Bâ

Black History Month | Business | Science and technology | Visual Arts | Literature

Science and technology

BHM plays a central role in debunking the myth that black innovators-inventors, particularly in science, are a rarity.

An early photograph of the prolific inventor, Garett A. Morgan from an official publication of the US Department of Transportation. © US Department of Transportation

Garett Morgan (1877-1963)

Garett Morgan was born in Kentucky to former slaves and had only six years of school education. He was a wealthy businessman and used his cash to finance his inventions.

The most well known of his inventions included the Morgan Traffic Signal and the prize-winning Morgan American Safety Helmet Hood, a significant invention in disaster and fire rescue.

On 25 July 1916, Morgan and his brother Frank used the Hood to save over twenty lives in the Lake Erie Crib Disaster.

Even though other inventors had patented traffic signals, Garrett Morgan was one of the first to apply for and acquire a U.S. patent to produce a cheap traffic signal. He also had his invention patented in Great Britain and Canada.

In 1963 he was awarded a citation for his traffic signal by the United States Government.

Morgan was a staunch advocate of the fight against racism and was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People till his death in 1963.

John Thompson (dob unknown)

John Thompson invented Lingo the programming language used in Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Director and Shockwave. Lingo has been used to create Flash and Shockwave movies common video games, web design, animation, and graphics.

Even in high school, Thompson was interested in computer programming languages. He taught himself several programming languages such as FORTRAN, PLI, COBOL and JCL while working as an intern in a New York research facility. Then from 1987 until 2001 Thompson was the chief scientist at Macromedia then in 2003 he became Senior Principal Software Engineer at Macromedia. John Thompson is now an owner of JHT Consulting, providing services for web-based application development.

Visual Arts >

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