By Sis. Tarpley, NDG Religion Editor
This is not just Black History that we are celebrating; not just America’s history, but world History. Many great and useful inventions that are being used worldwide and that are taken for granted were invented by Black Americans. Henry T. Sampson In 1971, he co-invented the Gamma-Electric cell with George H. Miley. The Gamma-Electric cell converts high radiation energy (gamma rays) to electricity.
Otis Boykin, born in Dallas in 1920, invented more than 25 electronic devices that are used in computers and guided missiles today. Frederick M. Jones on February 23, 1960, invented the Thermostat Control. P. Johnson on November 2, 1880, invented the Eye Protector.
How many industries that are vital to America’s success have been profoundly influenced by the contributions of Black Inventors? There is an endless list of contributions by Black people in America. We would not have many agriculture and automobiles products; and communications as we know it. Thank God for Black History Month.
There are many Black Americans that have excelled and are continuing to excel and invent useful and life-changing devices, they use math and science to make a difference in how we live, work, play, and entertain today.
As a parent, grandparent, and a retired teacher, I also wish that all history of great magnitude is put in our textbooks, especially Black history, which is American’s history; in spite of what we have been taught. But wishing it is not going to get the information in our textbooks on the grand scale that it needs to be. It’s going to take some changed minds and hearts of our society to accomplish that. What needs to be done is for Texas and California, two states that purchase the largest amount of textbooks, request that our textbooks are updated with relevant, useful and accurate history. I guarantee you that when it’s the bottom line (business profits) that counts and it’s in the best interest of publishers; our history books will reflect history more accurately.
Read the story of Carter Godwin Woodson, Father of Black History (December 1875 – April 1950, it is a captivating and inspiring story in itself.
Dr. Woodson said, “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”
Dr. Woodson, a distinguished Black author, editor, publisher, and historian who put his money, life, blood, sweat and tears in establishing Black History Week, (in the 1960s it was established as Black History MONTH) he believed that Blacks should know their past in order to participate intelligently in the affairs
