African American Innovators
This Black History month, I attended an elementary school “wax museum” display of African American innovators. I’d never been to such an event, so I expected wax figures like at Madam Tussauds. (I had visited Tussauds in New York years ago and posed with one of my favorite actors, Samuel L Jackson. People still see that photo and think I met him in person, and I don’t try to correct them.)
This wax museum was different. What I found was a group of around thirty fourth and fifth graders in the school cafeteria, each representing an African American innovator they had researched. The students stood still as wax figures, posing next to a poster they’d created with pictures and interesting facts about their innovator. Some of the children were dressed in full costume as scientists, entrepreneurs, doctors, athletes.
As you approach each student, you see a large red paper button prompting you to press it. Follow the prompt and your innovator comes alive, talking about their life story, important achievements, and legacy to the world. It was delightful to see these little youngsters take on big names and big roles and answer questions about their innovations.
Black creativity and innovation
In this way, I got to meet about two dozen renowned and not so well known African American innovators. They included medical inventors like Vivien Thomas, who developed a procedure to treat Blue Baby Syndrome and Patricia Bath who developed the Laserphaco for cataract surgery. Inventors like Philip Downing (letter box), Garrett Morgan (gas mask), and John Lee Love (pencil sharpener) were featured. I also met athletes like Willie O’Ree, the first African American professional hockey player and Althea Gibson, professional golfer and the first Black tennis player to win the Grand Slam in 1956, who went on to win a total of eleven Grand Slams in her career.
There were entrepreneurs like Madame CJ Walker, the first female self-made millionaire in America – a formidable business woman who made hair products for Black people and was also a social activist and philanthropist. I learned that agricultural scientist George Washington Carver developed peanut products and helped poor farmers improve soil quality and crop yield on their farms. And that George Crum invented potato chips and Lewis Latimer invented the carbon filament for light bulbs, the evaporative air conditioner and improved the toilet systems on trains. Our modern day Black achievers, including ballet dancer and author Misty Copeland and engineer Jerry Lawson, inventor of the video game console, were also in the wax museum display.
Telling African American stories
We don’t get to hear enough about the incredible innovations of people of color. Their stories, brilliance and legacy are often obscured through the telling of history by those who oppressed them, thereby negating, dismissing or distorting their contributions. It was inspiring to have the stories of these African American innovators told by children of diverse backgrounds, races and ethnicities. I imagined these kids channeling the spirit of innovation from these achievers and using it to nurture their own creativity.
The next time I pick the mail from my letter box or see a street sweeper, use an ice cream scoop or apply a product in my coily hair, I have Philip Downing, Charles B Brooks, Alfred L Cralle and Madame CJ Walker to thank. I will take a moment to appreciate their achievements and the tremendous odds they overcame to express their creativity and share their brilliance with the world. I will remember their life story and, like the kids in the wax museum, I’ll tell it to someone else.
African American Innovator T-shirt photo taken by Nyambura Kihato