Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 16, 1995 TAG: 9502020001
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When these men created their inventions, some people wouldn't have shaken their hands.
These men were black.
Runway lights, flashlight batteries, traffic lights, paper lunch bags, fountain pens, mops, horse shoes, filaments for light bulbs ...
Some of these discoveries may not seem significant today, but think about what life would be like without them.
There are at least 50 inventions by blacks each of us sees or uses every day. We never think about where they came from. Many of them were created to make life easier for blacks themselves, who were often the ones doing the physical work.
Black inventors devised electrical, mechanical and telephone equipment; and new kinds of elevators, refrigerators and bathroom fixtures. Sometimes, they were not given credit for their creations. For many years, they were not allowed to hold patents for their inventions.
A patent is an official government document which gives the inventor exclusive rights to make, use or sell his or her inventions. Without it, other people could steal the idea and get credit (and money) for it. This happened to some white inventors, too.
Marylen Harmon, a social studies teacher at Northside Junior High School in Roanoke County, is a walking encyclopedia of black inventors. She has collected more than 500 patents or models of original inventions by them. And she knows a lot about the struggles they dealt with because of the color of their skin.
Oh, the stories she can tell ...
Elijah McCoy was the son of runaway slaves who discovered a way to oil machinery while it was still operating. Before he invented the lubricating cup, locomotives couldn't pull trains for long hauls without stopping, and factory machinery had to be stopped regularly. McCoy's invention saved time and money and was one of more than 75 he created.
Everyone has heard of Alexander Graham Bell. Did you know he bought inventions from black inventor Granville T. Woods? So did Thomas Edison and heads of other electrical companies. Woods invented a way to send telegraph messages between moving trains and invented the automatic air brake, both of which made rail transportation safer.
Woods was called ``the greatest electrician in the world'' and was written about in books and magazines. Have you ever heard of him?
Garrett A. Morgan kept his identity a secret so that more firefighters would benefit from the gas mask he invented. He believed some fire departments would rather endanger the lives of their men than do business with a black inventor. One night, a violent explosion trapped workmen in a tunnel beneath Lake Erie. Morgan was called in and, with the help of his invention, volunteers were able to enter the tunnel and save the surviving workers.
Morgan also saved lives by discovering a way to control traffic flow - he invented the three-way automatic electric stoplight, which became the traffic light of today.
If you've ever visited Washington, D.C., or seen pictures of the streets laid out like a giant piece of graph paper, you've seen the work of Benjamin Banneker. George Washington, who was president then, appointed him to plan the nation's capital when it was moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
Banneker, called ``the stargazer'' by his friends because of his fascination with the night sky, became an expert in astronomy. In 1789, he predicted a solar eclipse. Two leading astronomers disagreed with his calculations, but Banneker's prediction proved to be correct.
Frederick McKinley Jones was a cool guy. Thanks to his inventions - more than 40 dealing with refrigeration - foods can be shipped long distances without spoiling. It's possible for us to have oranges in the winter, meat any time of the year and milk that has not turned sour. Refrigeration units also make it possible to transport blood, medicines and even organs for transplants safely.
Inventions have changed our lives and made them easier in many ways. We would be missing many devices we count on every day if blacks had not finally been freed in body and imagination.
by CNB