We are overcoming decades of erasure of who we really are in telling our history. As the descendant of two pioneers in Black history, A’Lelia Bundles says that she is honored to be the one to share the history of her great-great-grandmother Madam C.J. Walker. “She is one of literally thousands of amazing people whose stories we need to hear,” said Bundles of her great-great-grandmother, Madam C.J. Walker — the first Black woman to become a millionaire in America. For years the history books in school have led people to believe that Madam C.J. Walker invented the hot comb. However, thanks to women like Bundles who are committed to sharing the facts, we learn that her story was much much more. Photo Credit: Courtesy of A’Lelia Bundles “By the time that she died at 51-years-old, she was a millionaire who had become a pioneer of the modern hair care industry, employed thousands of women, and used her money and influence as a philanthropist, a patron of the arts, and a political...

Many people in medtech credit inventor Earl E. Bakken as the creator of pacemakers and cardiac rhythm devices, but without the technology innovated by American inventor Otis Boykin those inventions would fail to exist today. Otis Frank Boykin, a Dallas native and electronic inventor, is the individual responsible for inventing the wire precision resistor — a type of technology that “enabled manufacturers to accurately designate a value of resistance for an individual piece of wire in electronic equipment,” Black Past reports. Before pursuing a life-long career as an inventor, Boykin attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee where he graduated from in 1941, Black Inventor notes. He later took a job as a laboratory assistant with the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation in Chicago, Illinois and left shortly after to start his own company, Boykin-Fruth Inc. At the same time, he also decided to go back to school and pursue his graduate studies at the Illinois Institute of...

Home security systems today use some of the most advanced surveillance technology known to man, and to think they didn’t come to exist until the late 1960s. Thanks to inventor Marie Van Brittan Brown, the idea for a home surveillance device transformed into building the foundation for what we now consider our modern-day security systems. Brown — who’s also credited for inventing the first closed circuit television — pioneered the very first first home security system and filed the patent that has influenced the kind of security technology installed in millions of today’s single-family homes, apartment buildings, and office buildings for small businesses around the world. According to Face2Face Africa, Brown took an unconventional path as an inventor. In fact, she began her professional career as a nurse who worked odd hours outside of the traditional 9-5 job. Her husband Albert Brown also worked many late nights away from home as an electronics technician. Brown often worried about...

The son of two escaped slaves from Virginia, Lewis Howard Latimer was raised in Massachusetts. Latimer’s father was found by his owner and tried, though he was eventually allowed to purchase his freedom in Massachusetts. However, the outcome of the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford U.S. Supreme Court case, which held that slaves must be freed from the state in which they were enslaved to be free, caused the elder Latimer to fear for his safety. His father fled to protect his family, and Lewis Latimer and his family split up, with the male children living on a farm and his sisters staying with a family friend. At 16-years-old, Latimer joined the Navy for two years, and after receiving an honorable discharge, he went to work at a patent law firm, eventually becoming a draftsman. In 1873, Latimer married Mary Wilson Lewis; they later had two daughters. A year after his marriage Latimer, co-patented a new toilet system for railroad trains. Two years later, he was hired directly by Alexander...

Gaming is a billion-dollar industry (and counting) that often neglects or shuts out Black gamers. Though overlooked, Black developers, engineers, programmers, and gamers have skillfully contributed to the business. High-profile founders like Dennis Matthews and popular streaming gamers like Swagg continue to bring visibility to the Black gaming community, but before them, who laid the foundation? Let’s take a moment to salute the three Black pioneers who helped shape the modern gaming industry. Gerald “Jerry” Lawson As a kid, Queens, New York native Jerry Lawson nurtured his love for electronics. He repaired TVs as a teen and made walkie-talkies. He eventually became an engineer and designer at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp’s gaming division in the ’70s. There, Lawson led the team that invented the Fairchild Channel F (“F” is for fun), the first-ever video game console that allowed gamers to play several different games on one system via the first video game cartridge. It...

Black people in the field of tech have been way more integral than most may think. In fact, computer scientist Lisa Gelobter is one of the many modern Black tech innovators that pioneered a lot of the internet technology we use today. Lisa Gelobter — who is the current CEO and co-founder of tech-enabled platform tEQuitable — has over 25 years of experience in the tech industry. She’s the mastermind that cultivated the ascent of online video as well the brains behind software used in beloved consumer products such as Hulu and Shockwave — the 1995 essential technology that led to the development of interactive multimedia, web animation, and video games, according to her company’s website. Without Gelobter’s contribution to Shockwave, streaming and other digital privileges may not have existed. Additionally, she’s also the computer scientist who developed the animation used to create GIFs — a forever game-changer to social media apps that have integrated the multimedia practice into...

If you’ve ever called out to Siri, Alexa, or Google and got a response from the device you were using, you’re talking to a microphone designed by Dr. James E. West and his colleague Gerhard Sessler. West is an inventor and professor who helped create the Electret Microphone, an invention that accounts for 90 percent of all microphones producing clear and crisp sound today, according to Biography.com. He was born on Feb. 10, 1931, in Farmville, VA. West received his bachelor’s degree from Temple University in 1957 and soon after graduating, was employed by Bell Laboratories. While working at Bell, he teamed up with fellow scientist, Gerhard Sessler and the duo created a device that eliminated the need for an external power source to convert sound into an electrical signal. By 1968, the electret microphone was the industry standard. West used the momentum from his professional success at Bell Labs to lead minority internship and hiring initiatives. According to U.S. News, he also...

Valerie Thomas is a retired scientist and inventor known for her contributions to aerospace engineering at NASA and her patented Illusion Transmitter. Thomas was born in Maryland in 1943. According to Biography, Thomas was interested in science as a child. However, as a young woman raised within the social constructs of the 1950s, she was unable to explore her interests and talents until she left for college. As a student at Morgan State University, she was one of only two women to major in physics, according to Biography. Thomas excelled in her studies and was hired into NASA upon her graduation. While at NASA, Thomas helped develop the technology behind the first satellite that allowed images to be sent to Earth from space as a part of the Landsat program. She became internationally known as an expert contact for Landsat data, according to NASA.gov. Thomas held several positions within NASA before her retirement in 1995. She led a team of 50 scientists for the Large Area Crop...