Black People Invented Everything

Who invented the traffic light? What about transportation itself? Farming? Art? Modern chemistry? Who made…cats? What if I told you there was ONE answer to all of these questions? That one answer? BLACK PEOPLE! Seriously. And this book is like a mini-encyclopedia, full of more evidence than WikiLeaks and just as eye-opening! Do you know just how much Black inventors and creators have given to modern society? Within the past 200 years, Black Americans have drawn on a timeless well of inner genius to innovate and engineer the design of the world we live in today. But what of all the Black history before then? Before white people invented the Patent Office, Black folks were the original creators and builders, developing ingenious ways to manage the world’s changes over millions of years, everywhere you can imagine, from Azerbaijan to Zagazig! With wit and wisdom (and tons of pictures!) this book digs deeper than the whitewashed history we learn in school books and explores how our African ancestors established the foundation of modern society! Have you inherited this genius? What can you do with it? Inspired by solutions from the past, we can develop strategies for a successful future!

Who Invented the traffic light? What about transportation itself? Farming? Art? Modern chemistry? Who made?cats? What if I told you there was ONE answer to all of these questions? That one answer? BLACK PEOPLE!Seriously. And this book is like a mini-encyclopedia, full of more evidence than WikiLeaks and just as eye-opening!Do you know just how much Black inventors and creators have given to modern society? Within the past 200 years, Black Americans have drawn on a timeless well of inner genius to innovate and engineer the design of the world we live in today. But what of all the Black history before then?Before white people invented the Patent Office, Black folks were the original creators and builders, developing ingenious ways to manage the world's changes over millions of years, everywhere you can imagine, from Azerbaijan to Zagazig!With wit and wisdom (and tons of pictures!) this book digs deeper than the whitewashed history we learn in school books and explores how our African ancestors established the foundation of modern society! Have you inherited this genius? What can you do with it? Inspired by solutions from the past, we can develop strategies for a successful future!

Traces the lives of fourteen black scientists and inventors who have made significant contributions in the various fields of science and industry.

This original collection of quotations cites approximately 100 well-known African Americans from all walks of life, including Maya Angelou, Louis Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, Julian Bond, George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, and Ralph Ellison.

According to the stereotype, late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century inventors, quintessential loners and supposed geniuses, worked in splendid isolation and then unveiled their discoveries to a marveling world. Most successful inventors of this era, however, developed their ideas within the framework of industrial organizations that supported them and their experiments. For African American inventors, negotiating these racially stratified professional environments meant not only working on innovative designs but also breaking barriers. In this pathbreaking study, Rayvon Fouché examines the life and work of three African Americans: Granville Woods (1856–1910), an independent inventor; Lewis Latimer (1848–1928), a corporate engineer with General Electric; and Shelby Davidson (1868–1930), who worked in the U.S. Treasury Department. Detailing the difficulties and human frailties that make their achievements all the more impressive, Fouché explains how each man used invention for financial gain, as a claim on entering adversarial environments, and as a means to technical stature in a Jim Crow institutional setting. Describing how Woods, Latimer, and Davidson struggled to balance their complicated racial identities—as both black and white communities perceived them—with their hopes of being judged solely on the content of their inventive work, Fouché provides a nuanced view of African American contributions to—and relationships with—technology during a period of rapid industrialization and mounting national attention to the inequities of a separate-but-equal social order.

A New York Times bestseller: “This terrific new book . . . [explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive.”—Boston Globe Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a huge gap in literature that has long focused on the non-white and forcefully reminds us that the concept of “race” is an all-too-human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed as it has been driven by a long and rich history of events.

This comprehensive and entertaining account of African-American history is presented in a fun, engaging, and intelligent way. Significant information in six broad sections includes Great Migrations; Civil Rights and Politics; Science, Inventions, and Medicine; Sports; Military; Culture and Religion.