Her work led to fiber optics, touch-tone telephones, caller id, call waiting, and even solar cells. Similarly to other black women in history, Shirley Jackson, pictured above, contributed multiple advances in her fields. This eventually allowed computers to connect to devices like printers, monitors, etc. He also spearheaded the color computer monitor and was a collaborator on the first gigahertz chip. Mark Dean, a noted IBM engineer, led the design team for the ISA bus. Jackson | Touch-tone Telephones, Supercomputers, and Netcom – oh my!īlack inventors made many marks in the fields of computers, telephones, and the Internet. You’ll find 40 black inventors in different categories as below:įirst up, we’ll take a look at black inventors in the world of computers and telephones. Walker, even paved the road for modern entrepreneurial endeavors.Īs a result of my research, I have categorized each inventor into the industry in which they worked. and world history is, sadly, often overlooked.īeyond advancements in tech, black inventors adapted everyday items to make life easier. As recent films like Hidden Figures illuminated, the integral work African Americans have performed throughout U.S. While we often write about tech giants like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, many people (with more disadvantages and fewer advantages) advance the tech landscape. Black History Month Focus: Black Inventors Join us in celebrating these peoples’ intense determination, intelligence, and skill against all odds. Yet, despite a strong racial bias that continues to this day, these bright minds overcame intense and longstanding disadvantages to benefit the system that oftentimes overlooked their capabilities, potential, and even humanity.įor that reason, we think they deserve extra special consideration. Many of these innovations and inventions are integral to our society and impressive accomplishments on their own.

What kind of contributions to science and tech have black inventors made over the years? Luckily, there are many more cases just like theirs in U.S. Last year, we briefly wrote about the incredible women behind the Hidden Figures book and a recent major motion picture. Here we’ll celebrate just a few of their accomplishments.ĭid you know that Philip Downing invented the street mailbox? I’ll bet you didn’t know that Joseph H. African Americans and other black inventor have contributed much to various industries over the decades.

Black app creators