[Arpege92]

My son was given an assignment to write an essay on an African American who contributed greatly to our society. I came across this list and thought I would share it with all you.

[xJones]

Thank you, it's a great read.

[ClearCase_guy]

Benjamin Banneker! Can't forget him!

[TexasCajun]

African American Inventors...

We're talking exclusively BLACK African Americans here, right? White African American inventors are excluded, since this is Black History Month, after-all!

[Mike Darancette]

The most useful (not mentioned here) is the Golf Tee.

[speedy]

All of these accomplishments took place without affimative action, we might note. Isn't meritocracy great?

[Stallone]

Jesse Jackson invents daily.

We call 'em "LIES".

[fish hawk]

And how can we forget that Blacks invented really good cooking! MMMMMmmmmmmmmmm yum.

[Teacher317]

What a shame that 90% of blacks would know either one (Carver) or none.

[CSM]

Thank you. I have been trying to find programming about such things, but I am surprised that it is hard to find in Feb.

[Labyrinthos]

One of the things that I find interesting is the number of these inventors who lived into their 70's and 80's at a time when the average life expectancy was significantly less. They were obviously doing a lot of things right in addition to the productive use of their brain cells.

[per loin]

ELIJAH MCCOY (1844-1929) This American inventor is best known for inventing ingenious devices to lubricate heavy machiner automatically. His devices were so reliable that people often asked if machinery contained "the real McCoy," likely giving rise to this enduring expression.

[Q] From Ana Elisa Leiderman:Could you please tell me how the expression the real McCoy originated?

[A] I wish I could. There are at least half a dozen theories about which of the myriad McCoys of America at the end of the nineteenth century is the genuinely real McCoy. Was it, as Alistair Cooke argued, a famous cattle baron? Or was it perhaps Elijah McCoy, who invented a machine to lubricate the moving parts of a railway locomotive? The broad consensus seems to be that it was Kid McCoy, the former welterweight boxing champion of the 1890s. He had so many imitators, taking his name in boxing booths in small towns throughout the country, that it seems he had eventually to bill himself as Kid "The Real McCoy", and the phrase stuck. Now let me enter a caveat: The Oxford English Dictionary records this from a letter written by the author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883: "He's the real Mackay. It"s not only in a different spelling, but a decade before Kid McCoy became famous, and almost certainly refers to the famous Scottish firm of whisky makers. So the debate must continue.

Source: World Wide Words

[U S Army EOD]

When Garrett Morgan rescued these people that were trapped using his mask, he had to pass himself off as an indian in order to be allowed to rescue these people.

[puroresu]

Good list! Thanks for posting it!