Where would the world be without the contributions of Black inventors? From the ironing board and the stoplight, to the potato chip and the clock, Black inventors are to thank for many items that we use every day, but the fight for recognition hasn’t been an easy battle.
The first Black inventor to receive a patent is believed to be Thomas Jennings. Prior to an 1836 revision, slaves were legally allowed to receive patents but the rule didn’t apply to Jennings, who was a free man who owned a dry cleaning business in New York City. In 1821 he applied for a patent for a dry-cleaning method known as “dry scouring.” He later used earnings from the invention to free his family members, and support the slavery abolition movement.
Once the national law was changed, slaves were barred from applying for patents. As a result, a number of Black inventors weren’t credited for their work until years later, if at all.
While the likes of George Washington Carver, Madam C.J. Walker, and Benjamin Banneker are among the more popular Black inventors, Hip-Hop Wired put together a special list of Black inventors from the last 100 years.
Check them out in the gallery below.
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Photo: NationalGeographic.com
Garrett A. Morgan
1900s — Garrett August Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1878. The son of ex-slaves, Morgan quit school as a youngster but kept his studies up through personal tutoring as a teenager. In 1985 he began work in the sewing machine industry and is known for various inventions in the early and mid-19th century.
In 1905 Morgan discovered an additional use for a liquid used on sewing machine needles, by turning the liquid into a cream to straighten hair. He later launched the Garrett A. Morgan Hair Refining Company, and in 1912 filed a patten for a smoke protection hood (gas mask). The product was marketed through Morgan’s National Safety Device Company beginning in 1914.
Marjorie Joyner
1920s — Marjorie Joyner’s invention helped women of different races. Joyner was born in Virginia in 1896, and began her studies in cosmetology and beauty in 1912. Four years later, she became the first black person to graduate from Chicago’s Moler Beauty School, where she met beauty innovator and entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker.
While overseeing Walker’s company in the late 1920s, Joyner invented a wave machine for women’s hair. The idea came when she was cooking pot roast one day and noticed the metal rods used to cook and keep the meat together. She translated the heated rods idea into a hair invention that became very popular among both Black and White women.
Frederick McKinley Jones
1930s — Fredrick M. Jones was an Ohio born inventor and entrepreneur. In the mid-1930s, Jones invented the automatic refrigerating unit that helped truckers keep perishables fresh. It was later used to aid in the transportation of blood and food to army hospitals during World War II.
Bessie Blount Griffin
195os- Bessie Blount Griffin was a Virginia-born physical therapist, forensic scientist, an inventor. In 1951, Griffin invented an electronic device to help amputees feed themselves. The idea was born during her work with soldiers in World War II.
She passed away in 2009, at the age of 95.
Otis Boykin
1960s –Otis Boykin was born in Texas in 1920. Boykin attended Fisk University in the late 1930s and spent a couple years at the Illinois Institute of Technology before dropping out for a job opportunity. In 1964 Boykin moved to Paris and is noted for several inventions including a pacemaker control unit that uses electrical impulses to maintain a patient’s heartbeat.
Boykin died from heart failure in 1982.
Rufus Stokes
Late 1960s — Rufus Stokes was born in Alabama in 1922. He joined the army right out of high school, and by 1949 landed a job with an a Chicago incinerator company, Brule Inc. Stokes is believed to have helped in, but never received credit for, the company’s incinerator designs, which is why he reportedly quit. Inspired by the Windy City’s poor air quality, Stokes invented an air purification device to reduce emissions from furnaces and power plants.Stokes received a patent for the invention in 1968.
He died in 1982 from mesothelioma, an asbestos-related rare cancer.
Dr. Patricia Bath
1980s — Dr. Patricia Bath was born in Harlem, N.Y. in 1942. Bath earned a B.A. in chemistry from New York’s Hunter College in 1964, and a doctoral degree from Howard University in 1968. As an intern at Harlem hospital Bath’s noticed disparities in the number of eye procedures performed on Black and low income patients despite the high cases of blindness among the communities. She later persuaded her professors at Columbia University to perform free eye procedures on Harlem Hospital patients, and in 1970 became the first black person in her field to serve in ophthalmology at New York University.
In 1981 she began work on the device to improve laser eye surgery and reduce patient pain. She earned a patent for the invention in 1988, becoming the first female Black medical doctor to do so for a medical practice.
Lonnie G. Johnson
Late 1980s — It took him a long time to get the recognition but last year, Lonnie G. Johnson was officially compensated for inventing the super soaker. Born in Alabama in 1949, Johnson is a graduate of Tuskegee University (former teaching home to , George Washington Carver). During his time in the U.S. Air Force Johnson worked on several inventions, including a prototype that would later become the super soaker. He sold the toy to the Larami Corporation to mass produce the toy, now noted among the Top 20 best-selling toys in the world.
Johnson has since earned more than 100 patents and in November 2013 won a $72.9 million lawsuit against Hasbro for royalties from his super soaker, and Nerf line of products.
Dr. Philip Emeagwali
Late 1980s — Dr. Philip Emeagwali is a native of Nigeria who made his way to the states at the age of 17, via a college scholarship to Oregon State University where he obtained a B.S. in mathematics. Emeagwali continued his studies at the University of Michigan where he earned a Ph. D. in Scientific Computing, and two Master’s Degrees from George Washington University.
In 1989 Emagwali invented that world’s fastest computer. Emulating a process followed by bees building honeycombs, Emeagwali used 65,536 processors to invent the world’s fastest computation at 3.1 billion calculations per second.
Tony Hansberry
2009 — Losing an eighth grade science fair at Darnell Cookman School of Medical Arts, led Tony Hansberry to his invention. The then 14-year-old Florida native invented a method to reduce the timestamp on hysterectomy procedures. The science project submission caught the attention of the medical world, and today Hansberry’s is method is commonly used at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center.
In 2012 Hansberry began his studies at Florida A&M University.
