Black History Month - Celebrating African-American Inventors

Clockwise from top left: Benjamin Banneker, Madame C.J. Walker, George Washington Carver,
Dr. Shirley Jackson, and  Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.

There are so many things that we take for granted. We eat our potato chips, drive safely on roads thanks to traffic lights, eat food that has been transported long distances in refrigerated trucks, travel in elevators, and turn on our home security systems without once thinking about the men and women who thought up these inventions. Every single one of these innovations came into the world because of the genius of an African American inventor. Indeed, so many of the things that we use every day were invented by African American inventors whom we have never even heard of. 

There are a few books on the subject that you might looking at:

African American Inventors by Otha Richard Sullivan

What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Raymond Obstfeld and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 

African-American Inventions That Changed The World: Influential Inventors and Their Revolutionary Creations by Michael A. Carson

Black History Month - The story of a brilliant African American inventor

One of the things I love about reviewing nonfiction children's literature is that I learn a lot. When I started reviewing titles for Black History Month I got to 'meet' so many wonderful men and women of African descent who stories are inspiring. I saw how many of these stories never ended up in history books, and I like to do my part to set the record straight in my own small way. African Americans, and other people of African descent around the world, have made enormous contributions to society, and we need to learn about their achievements about the honor them. 

Today you are going to meet an African American inventor who created many useful things in his productive life. One of these inventions, in particular, saved lives. 

To the Rescue: Garrett Morgan Underground 

Monica Kulling

Illustrated by David Parkins

Non-Fiction Picture Book

For ages 5 to 7

Tundra Books, 2017, 978-1-101-91882-1

Garrett Morgan was the seventh child of former slaves who lived in Kentucky and worked as sharecroppers. It was a hard life, and when it was time for Garrett to leave school so that he could get a job, the fourteen year old decided to travel north to Cleveland, Ohio, to see if he could find a job that was less unremitting. 

   Garrett started out sweeping floors in a clothing factory but he did not keep that job for long. When he noticed that the sewing machine belts were always breaking he invented a belt that was stronger, and thus he earned him his employer’s gratitude and a new job as a sewing machine repairman. 

   This new job served Garrett well and by the time he was twenty-one he owned his own sewing machine shop, and a house. He and his wife, Mary Anne, then opened a tailoring shop as well. 

  Garrett had a gift for inventing. Quite by accident he created a hair product that straightened curly hair. This invention led to him creating a new business, the G.A. Morgan Hair Refining Company. The success of his cream and other hair products gave Garrett the financial freedom to spend more of his time inventing.

   When Garrett saw a need he set about trying to create a product that would take care of that need. He saw that firefighters required some kind of device that would help them rescue people from smoke-filled buildings, and so he invented the Safety Hood and Smoke Protector. 

   Though his invention worked well, Garrett could not get the local fire departments interested in the hood, because Garrett was African-American. Then a disaster struck the city which changed Garrett’s life forever.

   All too often black inventors and innovators are not given credit for their creations. In this book Monica Kulling tells the story of an inventor whose inventions literally saved lives. Her engaging writing brings Garrett Morgan to life for young readers, and David Parkins’ ink and watercolor illustrations takes children back to a time when everyday life was a lot more dangerous than it is now.

February is Black History Month

 

Dear Bookish Friends,

February is Black History Month. Throughout the month I will be exploring books about African Americans and other men and women of African descent who have made the world a better place for all. 

   Black History Month is an annual event that celebrates the achievements of  people of African descent. It is a time for recognizing their central role in world history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

   The story of Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. That September, the Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent.

  Known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.

   In the decades that followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly proclamations recognizing "Negro History Week." By the late 1960s, thanks in part to the civil rights movement and a growing awareness of Black identity, "Negro History Week" had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.

   President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Today, Black History Month is a time to honor the contributions and legacy of African Americans across U.S. history and society—from activists and civil rights pioneers such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks to leaders in industry, politics, science, culture and more. 

   Since 1976, every American president has designated February as Black History Month and endorsed a specific theme. The Black History Month 2022 theme, “Black Health and Wellness,” explores "the legacy of not only Black scholars and medical practitioners in Western medicine, but also other ways of knowing (e.g., birthworkers, doulas, midwives, naturopaths, herbalists, etc.) throughout the African Diaspora. The 2022 theme considers activities, rituals and initiatives that Black communities have done to be well." 

Black History Month - two reviews

Recently I have been spending a good bit of my free time reconnecting myself to the world of music. I played the flute when I was a child and teenager - and then I just stopped. Now I am playing the flute again, and I am teaching myself the penny whistle. Over the last few weeks I have been reminded of the fact that music can truly offer solace and give your heart a lift.

The books that I have reviewed below are not only perfect titles for black history month, but they also look at the way in which songs can tell the story of a people. The will help readers to see and appreciate that music truly does have the power to give people strength and hope during hard times.

Let Freedom Sing

Vanessa Newton

Picture Book

Ages 6 and up

Blue Apple Books, 2009, 978-1-934706-90-9

   During the Civil Rights movement marchers, protestors, and activists had to face all kinds of obstacles. They were ridiculed, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and bombed. It was a hard time and often, to lift their spirits and to give them strength, the activists raised their voices in song. Sometimes the words they sang described what they were doing: sitting on a bus, sitting in a jail cell, or participating in a sit in. Sometimes their songs were about “letting the best in themselves shine the brightest.” The song “This little light of mine,” was just such a song.

   In this powerful and memorable book, Vanessa Newton takes the words of “This little light of mine,” a gospel children’s song, weaving her own words around the lyrics to show her readers how people from all walks of life “let their lights shine” for the civil rights cause. She shows how the Jim Crow laws kept white and black separate, and she shows how people dared to fight those laws without resorting to violence.

   Throughout the book, Vanessa Newton marries the text with her delightfully warm and rich vintage style multimedia art. The pictures capture special moments in the civil rights movement, including the day when Rosa Parks refused to move from her bus seat, and the day when Ruby Bridges dared to walk alone to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. 

Freedom Song: Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights 

Mary C. Turck

Nonfiction (with an audio CD)

For ages 10 and up

Chicago Review Press, 2009, 978-1-55652-773-9

Many of us think that the American Civil Rights movement began in the 50’s and 60’s. In actual fact, it began many years before when slaves found ways to fight back against their oppressors. They learn to read and write in secret, they ran away to northern states and into Canada, they refused to give up their hopes and dreams, and they sang songs. The songs they sang gave the slaves the strength to go on, they gave them hope, and they gave them the means to ‘talk’ about their dreams for the future.

   Many years after these melodies were first sung in cotton fields and on plantations, these same songs, and other like them, were sung in churches where African Americans came together to talk about how they would fight against segregation. Songs filled the air as people marched to protest segregated buses, schools, bus stations, restaurants, and other public places. Sometimes old traditional spirituals were given new lyrics to suit the times.

   This carefully researched book will help readers to see the role that music has had in the struggle for civil rights in American. Among other things, the author looks at the origins of the songs that were sung, the history of the movement, and she also tells the story of the Chicago Children’s Choir. 

Please use the search box at the top of the page to purchase these titles on Amazon.com

Black History Month - a review

Yesterday I read and reviewed a very powerful book about what it was like to grow up during the the days when the civil rights movement was in full swing in the southern states. The book was written by a woman whose father marched next to Martin Luther King Jr, and who played a critical role in the struggle to secure civil rights for African Americans. Here is my review:

Child of the Civil Rights Movement

Paula Young Shelton

Illustrated by Raul Colon

Picture Book

Ages 6 to 8

Random House, 2010, 9780375843143

    Paula was born in New York and she has never experienced the Jim Crow laws that her southern parents grew up with. She has not seen the ugliness of racism, and she has not been made to feel like a lesser person because of her skin color. Now her parents have decided that they need to lend their support to the civil rights movement in the south; it is time to go home.

   When they get to Atlanta, Paula’s father, Andrew Young, joins the battle for civil rights beside Martin Luther King Jr. To Paula he is “Uncle Martin,” and he is the kind man who plays with her in the pool and who comes to dinner. At these dinners, Paula listens to what Uncle Martin says and to the opinions of Ralph Abernathy, Randolph Blackwell, and the other men and women who are leading the effort to get justice and freedom for African Americans. Together, over the baked chicken and the creamy macaroni and cheese, this “family” decides how they should proceed with their campaigns. Marches, sit-ins, and boycotts are all planned around the dinner table. The underlying theme is that there is to be no violence. Even if they are beaten and imprisoned, the African Americans should not respond with aggression.

   This first hand account as described by Paula Young Shelton, Andrew Young’s daughter, is not only incredibly moving, but it is also very informative. Readers will get a very real sense of what it was like to be an African American child who was living in the middle of the civil rights movement. They will meet some of the key players in the movement, and will come to understand how much southern African Americans suffered under the boot of the Jim Crow laws.

   Raul Colon’s distinctively evocative illustrations perfectly compliment the text.

You can purchase the book on Amazon here.

Black History Month - a review

In honor of Black History Month I have reviewed this excellent award winning title about a little slave girl, her doll, and the Underground Railroad.

Almost to Freedom

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Colin Bootman

Picture Book

Ages 5 to 8

Lerner, 2003, 9781575053424

  Sally is a homemade rag doll. She doesn’t have any hair, and she isn’t glamorous, but she wears a pretty bandana and has a lovingly embroidered face. Sally was made for Lindy, a little slave girl living on a plantation in Virginia, and from the day Sally is put in Lindy’s arms, the doll and the little girl are inseparable. Sally is with Lindy when the little girl is working under the hot sun in the cotton fields. She is also there when the grownups are talking about Freedom. Lindy - and Sally - learn that the only way to get Freedom is to “run away” to a place that the grownups call “North.”
   At first Lindy is not sure why Freedom is such a good thing, but after she is cruelly whipped by the overseer for wanting to know how to spell her name, Lindy comes to understand that Freedom truly is something worth risking everything to get.

   One night Lindy is woken up when it is still dark and she, Sally, and Lindy’s mama, leave the plantation forever. They are off to find Freedom in the North.

   In this singular picture book, children will get to see what it was like to be a runaway slave through the sewn on eyes of a little rag doll. They will see what it was like to travel along the Underground Railroad, and come to appreciate the dangers the slaves faced.

   At the back of the book, the author provides her readers with more information about the Underground Railroad, and she also explains where the inspiration for her story came from.

   This title was one of the 2004 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor books.

Black History Month - a review

February is Black History Month, and in honor of this event I am going to share a few special reviews with you during the month. Today I have a review of a very special picture book, a book which delighted me when I read it not long ago.

Robert Smalls: The boat thief

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Illustrator:  Patrick Faricy
Nonfiction Picture Book  Series
For ages 10 and up
Hyperion, 2008   ISBN: 1423108027

Robert Smalls was a slave in South Carolina. He worked hard to learn useful skills, and by the time he was in his early twenties Robert was a skilled sailor and navigator, despite the fact that he was illiterate. He knew the waters along the southern coastline intimately and was highly valued by the people he worked for.

In 1862 Robert was working as a sailor on the Planter, a powerful side-wheeler. The

Planter was being used by the Confederacy to patrol Charleston Harbor, to lay mines, and to transport troops. More than anything Robert wanted to be free. He wanted to be sure that his baby son could not be sold like a piece of merchandize. Carefully Robert put together a plan, and on one night in May Robert and several other slaves stole the Planter and took her to the Union navy. Finally Robert was free, and he chose to serve the Union cause. His courageous theft of the Planter was just the beginning of what would be an extraordinary career.

In this fascinating American Heroes title, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives his readers a description of the life of one of America’s great heroes. Readers who have never heard of Smalls will be amazed that one man was able to do so much, and that one man did so much for his country despite numerous obstacles that lay in his path. Beautifully complimented by Patrick Fariey’s stunning artwork, this is an exceptional picture book biography.

This is one of several excellent nonfiction books that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written. Another one is called Saint Francis of Assisi: A life of joy