Black History

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant in the progress and development of American advancements.

Thomas Jennings is one of those people…

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Thomas Jennings was the first African American to receive a patent, on March 3, 1821 (U.S. patent3306x). Thomas Jennings’ patent was for a dry-cleaning process called “dry scouring”.

The first money Thomas Jennings earned from his patent was spent purchasing his family out of slavery and for support of the abolitionist cause.

Under the United States patent laws of 1793 and 1836, both slaves and freedman could patent their inventions. However, in 1857, a slave-owner named Oscar Stuart patented a “double cotton scraper” that was invented by his slave. Historical records only show the real inventor’s name as being Ned. Stuart’s reasoning for his actions was that, “the master is the owner of the fruits of the labor of the slave both manual and intellectual”. Continue Reading…

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant in the progress and development of American advancements.

Mildred and Richard Loving  are two of those people and their case against the state of Virginia was one of those events..

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The Supreme Court ruling, in 1967, struck down the last group of segregation laws to remain on the books — those requiring separation of the races in marriage. The ruling was unanimous, its opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, who in 1954 wrote the court’s opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring segregated public schools unconstitutional.

In Loving v. Virginia, Warren wrote that miscegenation laws violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. “We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race,” he said.

By their own widely reported accounts, Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed in their modest house in Central Point in the early morning of July 11, 1958, five weeks after their wedding, when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, burst into their bedroom and shined flashlights in their eyes. A threatening voice demanded, “Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?” Continue Reading…

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant in the progress and development of American advancements.

Dick Gregory is one of those people.

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Comedian and activist Dick Gregory ran for President of the United States in 1968 as a write-in candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party. Gregory received 47,097 votes. One of those that voted for Gregory was the literary genius, Hunter S. Thompson.

Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory (born October 12, 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur. Continue Reading…

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant for the progress and development of American advancements.

Otis Boykin is one of those people.

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Otis F. Boykin was born on August 29, 1920 in Dallas, Texas. After graduating high school, he attended Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated in 1941 and took a job as a laboratory assistant with the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. He undertook various tasks but excelled at testing automatic aircraft controls, ultimately serving as a supervisor. Three years laster he left Majestic and took a position as a research engineer with the P.J. Nilsen Reseach Laboratories. Soon thereafter, he decided to try to develop a business of his own a founded Boykin-Fruth, Incorporated. At the same time, he decided to continue his education, pursuing graduate studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois. He attended classes in 1946 and 1947 but was forced to drop out because he lacked the funds to pay the next year’s tuition. Continue Reading…

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant for the progress and development of American culture and values….

Gerald A. Lawson (Jerry) is one of those people.

This one comes by request from an HSK reader. If you would like to see someone featured please contact me HERE.

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Anyone who owns a Playstation, Wii or Xbox should know Lawson’s name. He created the first home video game system that used interchangeable cartridges, offering gamers a chance to play a variety of games and giving video game makers a way to earn profits by selling individual games, a business model that exists to this very day.

Lawson, who died last year at age 70, is just beginning to be recognized by the gaming industry for his pioneering work. Continue Reading…

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant for the progress and development of American culture and values….

Crispus Attucks is one of those people.

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Crispus Attucks (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) was a dockworker of Wampanoag and African descent. He was the first person shot to death by British redcoats during the Boston Massacre, in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been called the first martyr of the revolution.

Little is known for certain about Crispus Attucks beyond that he, along with Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, died “on the spot” during the incident. Two major sources of eyewitness testimony about the Boston Massacre, both published in 1770, did not refer to Attucks as a “Negro,” or “black” man; it appeared that Bostonians accepted him as mixed race. Historians disagree on whether Crispus Attucks was a free man or an escaped slave; but agree that he was of Wampanoag and African descent. Continue Reading…

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or moment that was significant for the progress and development of American culture and values….

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Harlem Renaissance, was the term used to describe a flowering of African-American literature and art in the 1920s, mainly in the Harlem district of New York City.

During the mass migration of African Americans from the rural agricultural South to the urban industrial North (1914–18), many who came to New York settled in Harlem, as did a good number of black New Yorkers moved from other areas of the city. Continue Reading…