Black History Month” Philip Bell Downing”

I hope y’all enjoyed Masai's Fresh Garden Eats from Dirt to Dish/Holistic Living Made Easy and my daily dose of Sunkissed History! We love learning about us and not just in February. We TRULY are history 375❤️✊🏾🖤✊🏾💚!

During the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, Philip Bell Downing successfully filed at least five patents with the United States Patent Office. Among his most significant inventions were a street letter box (U.S. Patent numbers 462,092 and 462,093) and a mechanical device for operating street railway switches (U.S. Patent number 430,118). Downing also enjoyed a long career as a clerk with the Custom House in Boston Massachusetts,retiring in 1927 after more than thirty years of service. Born in Providence Rhode Island on March 22, 1857, Downing came from a prominent background. 

His father, George T. Downing,was a well-known abolitionist and business owner, while his mother, Serena L. deGrasse, had family roots in New York City, New York dating back to the mid-1600s. Philip Downing’s grandfather, Thomas Downing, had been born to emancipated parents in Virginia. He also had success in business, establishing Downing’s Oyster House in the financial district of Manhattan in 1825. It quickly became one of the city’s best-known dining and catering establishments. In addition, Thomas Downing played an important role in founding the United Anti-Slavery Society of the City of New York in the mid-1830s.

One of six children, Philip Downing spent his childhood in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, as well as in Washington, D.C., where his father was manager of the U.S. House of Representatives’ dining room. Census records indicate that Downing moved to Boston around 1880. Shortly thereafter, he married Evangeline Howard, and had two children, Antonia Downing and Philip Downing  Jr. On June 17, 1890, the U.S. Patent Office approved Downing’s application for “new and useful Improvements in Street-Railway Switches.” His invention allowed the switches to be opened or closed by using a brass arm located next to the brake handle on the platform of the car. It also allowed the switches to be changed automatically in some cases.

A little over a year later, on October 27, 1891, his two patents for a street letter box also gained approval. Downing’s design resembled the mailboxes that are now ubiquitous, a tall metal box with a secure, hinged door to drop letters. Until this point, those wishing to send mail usually had to travel to the post office. Downing’s invention would instead allow for drop off near one’s home and easy pick-up by a letter carrier. His idea for the hinged opening prevented rain or snow from entering the box and damaging the mail.

More than twenty-five years later, on January 26, 1917, Downing would receive another patent (U.S. Patent number 1243,595), for an envelope moistener, which utilized a roller and a small, attached water tank, to quickly moisten envelopes. The following year saw another successful application (U.S. Patent number 126,9584) for an easily accessible desktop notepad. Philip Downing died in Boston on June 8, 1934. He was 77.

Black History Month”Masai Long”

We’re Making Black History❤️✊🏾🖤✊🏾💚!!! 

#Black2Basics

#Doing4Self

When I decided to pass the legacy of gardening down to #3 Masai's Fresh Garden Eats from Dirt to Dish/Holistic Living Made Easy as part of his Homeschooling Agriculture initiative we never imagined it would take off like it do! So when it came time to add books about gardening to our curriculum we searched and searched for books with ppl that looked like us. Still to no avail we couldn’t find them,so it got me to thinking. 

We need books featuring SunKissed children enjoying gardening. So that is when “Masai the Warrior Garden Adventures” was born😍! We are super EXCITED to announce that Masai the Warrior’s Gardening Book has now been on the shelf at the KCK Public Library(Main Branch)!

Happiest Book Anniversary! Masai the Warrior is making his stamp in history and this is just the beginning! We are History 365❤️🖤💚. If you’d like to purchase his gardening book 📖 https://sunnis-holistic-delights.square.site/product/our-books/79

#Doing4Self

#MakingHistory

#ImLeavingMyMark

#Black2Basics

#GrowSomething

Happy Black History Month” Samuel Raymond Scottron”

 Man oh man I love my Facebook memories especially during Black History Month. This was a post from 2008! Now I know y’all’ve heard of the late great Ms. Lena Mary Calhoun Horne. But have y’all heard of her Great Paw Paw Samuel Raymond Scottron!!!? Well every time you pull your blinds open or closed,or look in a two sided mirror you have him to thank for it!!! We are such DOPE people frfr…we are history 365❤️🖤💚! 

Samuel Raymond Scottron(February 1841 – October 14, 1908)was a prominent African-American inventor from Brooklyn, N.Y. who began his career as a barber. He was born in Philadelphia in 1841. He received his engineering degree from Cooper Union in 1878.

He was a community leader in New York, setting up organizations to promote racial harmony and fairness, as well as a public speaker and writer on race relations. He was a member of the Brooklyn board of education, and a leader in the Republican Party. He fought for the end of slavery in Cuba and Puerto Rico. He invented a special mirror bracket that allowed you to see yourself as others see you. He went on to receive four more patents.

Here are his inventions and patent numbers.

U.S. Patent 76,253 Improved Mirror, March 31, 1868

U.S. Patent 224,732 Adjustable Window Cornice, February 17, 1880

U.S. Patent 270,851 Cornice, January 16, 1883

U.S. Patent 349,525 Pole Tip, September 21, 1886

U.S. Patent 481,720 Curtain Rod, August 30, 1892

U.S. Patent 505,008 Supporting Bracket, September 12, 1893 

Samuel Scottron moved with his family to New York City when he was a child, where he completed grammar school. During the American Civil War, he was the sutler for the 3rd United States Colored Infantry and almost went bankrupt.

 To recoup his fortunes, he first operated grocery stores in Fernandina and Jacksonville, Florida, and then a barber shop in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was there that he developed and patented his first invention, the adjustable window cornice. Moving to Brooklyn, New York, he worked as a traveling salesman for an import-export business located in lower 

Manhattan while continuing to patent his inventions and, by the late 1880s, was able to support himself and his family by manufacturing the products derived from his patents. His company, the Scottron Manufacturing Company, was located at 98 Monroe Street in Brooklyn. He helped improve society through his anti-slavery efforts and his inventions.

Samuel Scottron married Anna Maria Willett, a native New Yorker, in 1863; they would have five children. Scottron was the maternal great-grandfather of Lena Horne.

https://campbellhousemuseum.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/the-mystery-of-samuel-r-scottron/

Happy Black History Month” Rebecca Lee Crumpler”

 We been representing Black Girl Magick before it became a catch phrase. We are History 365❤️🖤💚!!! 

Rebecca Lee Crumpler challenged the prejudice that prevented African Americans from pursuing careers in medicine to became the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, a distinction formerly credited to Rebecca Cole. Although little has survived to tell the story of Crumpler's life, she has secured her place in the historical record with her book of medical advice for women and children, published in 1883.

Crumpler was born in 1831 in Delaware, to Absolum Davis and Matilda Webber. An aunt in Pennsylvania, who spent much of her time caring for sick neighbors and may have influenced her career choice, raised her. By 1852 she had moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where she worked as a nurse for the next eight years (because the first formal school for nursing only opened in 1873, she was able to perform such work without any formal training). In 1860, she was admitted to the New England Female Medical College. When she graduated in 1864, Crumpler was the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, and the only African American woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College, which closed in 1873.

In her Book of Medical Discourses, published in 1883, she gives a brief summary of her career path: "It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine."

Dr. Crumpler practiced in Boston for a short while before moving to Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War ended in 1865. Richmond, she felt, would be "a proper field for real missionary work, and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children. During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled . . . to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 colored." She joined other black physicians caring for freed slaves who would otherwise have had no access to medical care, working with the Freedmen's Bureau, and missionary and community groups, even though black physicians experienced intense racism working in the postwar South.

"At the close of my services in that city," she explained, "I returned to my former home, Boston, where I entered into the work with renewed vigor, practicing outside, and receiving children in the house for treatment; regardless, in a measure, of remuneration." She lived on Joy Street on Beacon Hill, then a mostly black neighborhood. By 1880 she had moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and was no longer in active practice. Her 1883 book is based on journal notes she kept during her years of medical practice.

No photos or other images survive of Dr. Crumpler. The little we know about her comes from the introduction to her book, a remarkable mark of her achievements as a physician and medical writer in a time when very few African Americans were able to gain admittance to medical college, let alone publish. Her book is one of the very first medical publications by an African American.

Black History Month “Thomas Jennings”

The next time you pick up your clothes at the dry cleaner, send a thank you to the memory of Thomas Jennings. Jennings invented a process called ‘dry scouring,’ a forerunner of modern dry cleaning. He patented the process in 1821, making him likely the first black person in America to receive a patent...we are Sunkissed history 365❤️🖤💚..

Thomas L. Jennings was born on January 1st, 1791 to a free African-American family in New York City. He later married a woman named Elizabeth, who was born a slave in Delaware, 1798 and died March 5, 1873. Under New York's gradual abolition law of 1799, she was converted to the status of an indentured servant and was not eligible for full emancipation until 1827. It freed slave children born after July 4, 1799, but only after they had served “apprenticeships” of twenty-eight years for men and twenty-five for women (far longer than traditional apprenticeships,designed to teach a young person a craft), thus compensating owners for the future loss of their property.

Jennings was able to do this because he was born free in New York City. But for the great majority of black people in America before the Civil War, patents were unobtainable, as an enslaved person’s inventions legally belonged to his or her master. Jennings started out as an apprentice to a prominent New York tailor. Later, he opened what would become a large and successful clothing shop in Lower Manhattan. He secured a patent for his “dry scouring” method of removing dirt and grease from clothing in 1821, when he was 29 years old. An item in the New York Gazette from March 13 of that year announces Jennings’ success in patenting a method of “Dry Scouring Clothes, and Woolen Fabrics in general, so that they keep their original shape, and have the polish and appearance of new.”

But we’ll never know exactly what the scouring method involved. The patent is one of the so-called “X-patents,” a group of 10,000 or so patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office between its creation in 1790 and 1836, when a fire began in Washington’s Blodget's Hotel, where the patents were being temporarily stored while a new facility was being built. There was a fire station next door to the facility, but it was winter and the firefighters’ leather hoses had cracked in the cold.

Before the fire, patents weren’t numbered, just catalogued by their name and issue date. After the fire, the Patent Office (as it was called then) began numbering patents. Any copies of the burned patents that were obtained from the inventors were given a number as well, ending in ‘X’ to mark them as part of the destroyed batch. As of 2004, about 2,800 of the X-patents have been recovered. Jennings’ is not one of them. Sluby writes that Jennings’ was so proud of his patent letter, which was signed by Secretary of State—and later president—John Quincy Adams, he hung it in a gilded frame over his bed. Much of his apparently substantial earnings from the invention went towards the fight for abolition. 

He would go on to found or support a number of charities and legal aid societies, as well as Freedom’s Journal, the first black-owned newspaper in America, and the influential Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

All of Jennings’ children were educated and became successful in their careers and prominent in the abolition movement. His daughter Elizabeth, a schoolteacher, rose to national attention in 1854 when she boarded a whites-only horse-drawn streetcar in New York and refused to get off, hanging on to the window frame when the conductor tried to toss her out. A letter she wrote about the incident was published in several abolitionist papers, and her father hired a lawyer to fight the streetcar company. 

The case was successful; the judge ruled that it was unlawful to eject black people from public transportation so long as they were “sober, well behaved, and free from disease.” The lawyer was a young Chester A. Arthur, who would go on to become president in 1881. Though free black Americans like Jennings were free to patent their inventions, in practice obtaining a patent was difficult and expensive. Some black inventors hid their race to avoid discrimination, even though the language of patent law was officially color-blind. Others “used their white partners as proxies,” writes Brian L. Frye, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Law, in his article Invention of a Slave. This makes it difficult to know how many African-Americans were actually involved in early patents. If a white person infringed on a black inventor’s patent, it would have been difficult to fight back, says Petra Moser, a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“If the legal system was biased against black inventors, they wouldn’t have been able to defend their patents,” she says. The white infringer would have been believed. “Also, you need capital to defend your patent, and black inventors generally had less access to capital.”

It’s likely that some slave owners secretly patented their slaves’ inventions, Frye writes. At least two slave owners applied for patents for their slaves’ inventions, but were denied because no one could take the patent oath—the enslaved inventor was not eligible to hold a patent, and the owner was not the inventor.

Black History Month Shadrach Minkins

 Omg this is one of the dopest stories I’ve ever read. I’ve seen the picture over the years of the man in the chains and the one walking as it escaping,however I never knew the story behind the pictures. Until a couple weeks ago when my sister asked me had I heard of

Shadrach Minkins and his story. I had heard the name but that was about it. Sooo of course I had to start digging. Lol I’ve been reading everything I can find every since. So if you’ve never heard of Shadrach Minkins here ya go! 

#History

#WeHave2

#TeachOur

#Youth

#YaWont

#FindThis

#InYour

#SchoolsCurriculum 

Born into slavery in Norfolk, Virginia(the actual year is uncertain), Shadrach Minkins spent the first thirty years of his life in his hometown, but in May of 1850 he decided to run for freedom and escaped to Boston, where he became a waiter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadrach_Minkins

At that time, about 2,500 blacks lived in Boston. Runaway slaves found refuge there with fellow runaways, and a population of active black and white abolitionists. Most slaves who reached Boston expected the strong anti-slavery community would protect them and that they would be able to hide or blend in without being recaptured. The other option for fugitives was to pass through Boston to another safe location using the Underground Railroad. https://www.nps.gov/articles/-rescued-from-the-fangs-of-the-slave-hunter-the-case-of-shadrach-minkins.htm

The Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, however, undermined Boston’s reputation as a save haven.  This law allowed slave owners, or their representatives, to reclaim runaway slaves, with proof of ownership, throughout the United States.  Slave-catching aka patterrollers, now carried the force of law which meant all law-enforcement agencies throughout the North were required to assist those seeking fugitives. Law enforcement officers were required to arrest and hold any suspected fugitives and assist their return to slaveholders.

On February 15, 1851, Minkins was captured by two Boston police officers while he worked at Taft’s Cornhill Coffee House. While he was being taken to the courthouse, word spread and hundreds of black and white abolitionists crowded into the courthouse. Renowned abolitionist lawyers Robert Morris, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Ellis Gray Loring, and Samuel E. Sewall came to Minkins’ assistance, but under the Fugitive Slave Act, his seizure was legal.

As the crowd grew bigger, members of the anti-slavery Boston Vigilance Committee, led by black abolitionist Lewis Hayden, rushed through the courtroom, seizing Minkins from marshals holding him in custody.  Lewis then hid Minkins in Boston’s 

Beacon Hill neighborhood.

From there, Lewis guided Minkins to Cambridge where he followed the Underground Railroad to Montreal, Canada.  Minkins made a living first as a waiter and restaurant operator and later as a barber. He married about 1853 and had four children, settling in a community with fellow fugitive slaves from the United States.

The escape of Minkins prompted President Millard Fillmore to use federal troops to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.  He also called on Boston authorities to prosecute those who had taken Minkins from the Boston courthouse.  Hayden and other participants were arrested but soon acquitted by sympathetic Boston juries.

The Minkins episode further exacerbated tensions between Southern slaveholders and Northern abolitionists and thus contributed to the coming Civil War.  After the war, many runaway slaves in Canada returned to the U.S. Minkins, however, remained and lived out his life there, dying in Montreal on December 13, 1875.

Black History Month” Valerie Thomas”

 We are History 365❤️🖤💚!!! Today Masai's Fresh Garden Eats from Dirt to Dish/Holistic Living Made Easy and I are learning about Valerie Thomas! Ms Valerie was born in May of 1943, in Maryland. She showed interest in technology but despite her fascination, she was never encouraged to pursue her interest. And although her father was also interested in electronics, he would not help young Valerie with projects. 

Determined to learn about science, eight-year-old Valerie checked out a book titled ‘The Boy’s First Book On Electronics’ and created science projects on her own. Thomas attended an all-girl high school which placed very little emphasis on math and science. Upon graduating from high school, Thomas became one of two women at the time to major in physics at Morgan State University.

 She excelled in her studies and once she graduated from Morgan State, she accepted a job as a data analyst with NASA. While working at NASA, Thomas proved to be a highly valuable employee. In the 1970s, she oversaw the development of the image-processing system for Landsat. Landsat was the first satellite capable of sending images from outer space back down to Earth. Thomas later developed the illusion transmitter for which she received the patent for in 1980. The illusion transmitter creates optical illusion images using two concave mirrors. The unique shape of the mirrors produces an image that appears real or 3D. This technology was later adopted by NASA and has been used in surgery and to make TV screens. Thomas continued working for NASA until she retired in 1995. 

She had held numerous positions with NASA, like Project Manager of the Space Physics Analysis Network which allowed her to contribute immensely to space exploration. Thomas’ inventions improved the way we study space. She created a computer program that allowed scientists to study Halley’s Comet, the ozone layer, satellites, etc. Thomas has received a number of awards, including the Goddard Space Flight Center Award. She also mentored youth who were interested in math and science, teaching a new generation of scientists. https://urbanintellectuals.com/valerie-thomas-hidden-figure/

Black History Month” Sam Greenlee”

If you have never heard Sam Greenlee? Yooo then ya need to from under ya rock and google him!!! His book “The Spook Who Set by the Door literally help mood and shape many of my views. Yes indeed we ain’t new to this...get your literary   

game up😉!!! 

Sam Greenlee was born in Chicago,Illinois to an African-American family. His parents were singer and dancer Desoree Alexander and railroad man and union activist Samuel Greenlee. He grew up in west Woodlawn.

He attended Englewood High School, and in 1948 won a track scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1952 with a BS degree in political science. He was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity (Beta Omicron 1950). He served in the United States Army from 1952 to 1954, earning the rank of first lieutenant, and from 1954 to 1957 did graduate studies in international relations at the University of Chicago.

The author, Sam Greenlee, was told by Aubrey Lewis (1935–2001), one of the first black FBI agents recruited to the Bureau in 1962,that The Spook Who Sat by the Door was required reading at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.Having been much rejected by mainstream publishers, Greenlee spy novel first was published by Allison & Busby in the UK in March 1969, after the author met Margaret Busby in London the previous year,and by the Richard W. Baron Publishing Company, in the US. It was subsequently translated into several languages, including French, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Finnish, Swedish, and German. The cinematic adaptation, also called The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), was directed by Ivan Dixon, and the novel's author co-wrote the screenplay.

Black History Month” Charles Harrison”

 If you’re ever shaved,taken out the trash,set up the dryer,or played with the view master as a child you have Charles Harrison to thank for it! We absolutely loved learning about his and his inventions. It hit home for me personally as a person who is also dyslexia,and hasn’t let Society dictate what I can and can’t do! Salute and thank you for all you contribution. We are the fabric of history…Black History 365❤️🖤💚! 

Charles Harrison born September 23, 1931,Shreveport Louisiana and died November 29, 2018. Mr. Harrison was an African American industrial designer whose creations included such iconic consumer items as polypropylene trash cans (including those with wheels) and the plastic version of the 3-D View-Master photographic slide viewer. 

In 2008 the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum gave Harrison—one of the few early African American industrial designers—a Lifetime Achievement Award “in recognition of an individual who has made a profound, long-term contribution to contemporary design practice.” Harrison’s father was a university professor of industrial arts, and the youngster grew up in Louisiana; Prairie View, Texas; and Phoenix Arizona. When he was 16, his elder brother helped him to attend the City College of San Francisco, where for the first time in his life he was in class with white students. 

Despite struggling with dyslexia Harrison earned an associate’s degree and decided to pursue a career in industrial design. This decision took him in 1949 to Chi’Town where he studied with Henry Glass at the School of the Art Institute and earned a BFA (1954). He later received a Masters degree(1963) in art education from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design. 

After completing his military service as a cartographer, Harrison returned to Chicago, where he found a few temporary design jobs and worked for Sears on a freelance basis. It was during this period that he modified the View-Master into a plastic toy suitable for use by children. In 1961 Sears discarded its unwritten policy against employing African Americans, and Harrison was formally hired. He remained with Sears for 32 years, ultimately leading the firm’s design team.

In an era when aesthetic utility, and cost-effectiveness were in unusual balance, Harrison created a variety of practical domestic goods. Among the more than 700 products that he developed were such items as baby crips,portable hair dryers, hedge clippers, sewing machines of varying complexity,steam irons,riding lawn mowers, shoe buffers, portable turntables blenders, circular fluorescent lightbulbs, electric frying pans, consumer power tools, coffee percolators,fondue pots,toasters, stoves,hearing aids,band saws, wheelbarrows, and cordless electric shavers https://youtu.be/CfkY3gVZfsE

.

Black History Month” Ken Johnson”

 Have you ever heard of Ken Johnson? Well while looking up fun Black History facts I came across his information. I was shocked to learn he was the inventor of the second most popular card game in the world

PHASE 10!!! 

Ken Johnson is the inventor of the worldwide popular card game, Phase 10. He was quoted as saying….”Everything you need for success is within you. Everything outside you is either a tool or an obstacle"  

  

Talent Meets Drive~At 22 years old, Ken Johnson stated his manufacturing company in the basement of his parents’ home in Detroit, MI. where produced games with modest success. Impressed with the huge success of the best-selling card game, Uno, Ken  was determined to design an Uno rival card game. Holed up in his apartment for a just a few days, Ken designed the Phase 10 card game.  K-Mart and Meijer stores were his first customers. 

Licensing/Distribution Rights: The Ace in the Hole~In 1987, Ken licensed the manufacturing and distribution rights of Phase 10 to ensure receiving royalties from worldwide sales. In 2012, Ken Johnson was nominated for the prestigious TAGIE award, (the Oscar of the Toy and Game industry). Today, at nearly 40 years old, Phase 10 is the second best- selling worldwide card game, Uno still holds the top spot. Both games are produces by Mattel. 

More Game~For Phase 10 aficionado’s , Johnson has developed five additional versions:Phase 10 Master; Phase 10 Twist, ( board game version), Phase 10-Handheld Electronic Game, Phase 10 Dice Game and Magmic (Mobile Apps).

In addition to inventing games, Johnson is a popular guest motivational speaker at inventor venues and provides support and advice to young inventors. He is the author of several self-help guide books:  “The Simple Plan”, “From Scratch” and “Success by Thought”.  From a basement apartment to worldwide multi-million-dollar sales, Ken Johnson’s dreams were realized by marrying talent with determination. The hand he played has delivered in spades. Story by: James Howard

https://youtu.be/qrcoNDKMrwg

Black History Month” Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner”

 Of course this bit of Black History is dope to me! Man we are history 365❤️🖤💚! 

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner (1912–2006) always had trouble sleeping when she was growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her mother would leave for work in the morning through the squeaky door at the back of their house and the noise would wake Kenner up. 

“So I said one day, ‘Mom, don’t you think someone could invent a self-oiling door hinge?’” She was only six at the time, but she set about the task with all the seriousness of a born inventor. “I [hurt] my hands trying to make something that, in my mind, would be good for the door,” she said. “After that I dropped it, but never forgot it.” This pragmatic,do-it-yourself approach defined her inventions for the rest of her life. 

But while her creations were often geared toward sensible solutions for everyday problems, Kenner could tell from an early age that she had a skill that not many possessed. When her family moved to Washington DC in 1924, Kenner would stalk the halls of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, trying to work out if someone had beaten her to it and led a patent for an invention first. The 12-year-old didn’t find any that had done so.

In 1931 Kenner graduated from high school and earned a place at the prestigious Howard University, but was forced to drop out a year and a half into her course due to financial pressures. She took on odd jobs such as babysitting before landing a position as a federal employee, but she continued tinkering in her spare time. 

The perennial problem was money; filing a patent was, and is, an expensive business. Today, a basic utility patent can cost several hundred dollars. By 1957 she had saved up enough money for her first ever patent: a belt for sanitary napkins. It was long before the advent of disposable pads, and women were still using cloth pads and rags during their period. 

Kenner proposed an adjustable belt with an inbuilt, moisture-proof napkin pocket, making it less likely that menstrual blood could leak and stain clothes.”One day I was contacted by a company that expressed an interest in marketing my idea. I was so jubilant,” she said. “I saw houses, cars, and everything about to come my way.” A company rep drove to Kenner’s house in Washington to meet with their prospective client. 

“Sorry to say, when they found out I was black, their interest dropped. The representative went back to New York and informed me the company was no longer interested.”Undeterred, Kenner continued inventing for all her adult life. She eventually filed five patents in total, more than any other African-American woman in history. Read more: The Forgotten Black Woman Inventor Who Revolutionized Menstrual Pads – VICE

Black History Month”Booker Whatley”

 Have you ever heard of Mr. Booker Whatley!!? If not you’re in for a real treat! Thank you Mr. Booker for your contribution to farmers we thank you! Black History 365❤️🖤💚!

Born in Alabama in 1915, as the oldest of twelve children, Booker Whatley was passionate about food production and land stewardship from a young age. After graduating with a degree in agriculture and serving in Japan during the Korean War (where he used hydroponics to safely grow food for US troops), he earned a doctorate in horticulture from Rutgers University. Dr. Whatley later returned to school, earning a law degree at the age of 73.

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, recognizing a strong connection between self-sustaining land ownership and political decision-making, Dr. Whatley aimed to increase profits for small-scale food producers while introducing new ways to improve and popularize regenerative agriculture. As a long-time professor at Tuskegee University, he began advocating for ways farms can generate profits and attract sharers, particularly as Black farmers were routinely denied vital federal assistance. 

The CSA and PYO models allow food growers to utilize the resources they already have while forging long-lasting relationships with their local communities. Tragically, like so many contributions of Black Americans throughout history, Dr. Whatley’s groundbreaking philosophy and methods were overlooked for many decades. Today’s national and local food systems would look radically different if even a few of his innovative approaches were adopted over the last six decades.

With the number of CSA farms and sharers increasing throughout the country each year, Booker Whatley’s life’s work is finally receiving the recognition and attention it deserves. To read more about Dr. Whatley’s profound legacy, check out these articles:

https://youtu.be/8WpB_Gv7DkU

Dr. Booker T Whatley — Franklinton Farms

Black History Month”Jack Johnson” Pt2

 Ok almost every year I post something about Mr.Jack Johnson! He’s one of my favs and has also become one of Sai’s as well. This is something I learned today on a Black History Tour! 

Jack Johnson’s was wanted for transporting a white women(his lover)from one state to another. In 1912, Johnson was arrested for violating the Mann Act, an anti-prostitution law. An all-white jury found that when Johnson traveled with his 19-year-old white girlfriend, he was transporting a woman across state lines for an immoral purpose. 

He was actually apprehended right here in Kansas City due to the White Slave Law. The reason he went a while without being arrested is because he refused to be handcuffed. When he was taken in,they found a pair of dice and $450 on his person. He served time in the pen in Leavenworth KS, there he revamped the wrench. 

The thought of a so called black heavyweight champion with a fondness for white women terrified Hollywood. Did you know the movie King Kong was supposedly inspired by Johnson's lust and love for white women?

Johnson died in 1946, after angrily speeding away from a diner in North Carolina that either refused to serve black people or tried to force him to sit outside. His car struck a light pole, and he was sent to the nearest hospital that would treat black patients, more than 25 miles away from the site of his accident.

Black History Month” Lyda Newman”

 This one is so dope to me. Because I had sooooo much hair growing up and was REALLY tender headed learning to do my own hair was crucial lol. The hairbrush and pick were my fav go to,to comb out my hair. 

So when I learn that a Sista was the one who revamped the hairbrush.Cultural our hair is our pride and joy so I was like lol yeah that makes sense. We’ve always been history….celebrating 365❤️🖤💚!

Lyda Newman, born in Ohio circa 1885, was an African-American inventor and women's rights activist. A hairdresser by trade, she received a patent for an improved model of hairbrush in 1898. She also fought for women's right to vote, working with well-known women's suffrage activists. Newman lived much of her adult life in New York City.

Little is known about the life of Lyda D. Newman. According to official census records, she was born in Ohio around 1885. By the late 1890s, she was a New York City resident.

In 1898, Newman applied for a United States patent for a new style of hairbrush. She received the patent on November 15, 1898. Her hairbrush design included several features for efficiency and hygiene. It had evenly spaced rows of bristles, with open slots to guide debris away from the hair into a recessed compartment, and a back that could be opened at the touch of a button for cleaning out the compartment.

In 1915, Newman was mentioned in local newspapers for her suffrage work. She was one of the organizers of an African-American branch of the Woman Suffrage Party. The records of government censuses of 1920 and 1925 confirm that Newman, then in her 30s, was living in an apartment building on Manhattan's West Side and was working as the hairdresser to a private family. https://youtu.be/ON41SiOyWEM

Black History Month” Edward A Bouchet”

As a farmer I love learning about the contributions that we’ve made in agricultural…especially since we built all of this. So when I learned about Mr. Edward A Bouchet and his seed planter I was like we so dope! We’ve been History and doing it 365❤️🖤💚!! 

Mr. Edward A Bouchet was the second African American inventor to receive a US patent. He was born in Glen Ross, Maryland, United States in 1807. His first invention was the Seed-Planter, patented October 14, 1834, which allowed farmers to plant more corn using less labor and in a shorter time.

He was born in Glen Ross, Maryland, with very little knowledge about his childhood. In the patent records, Bouchet is listed as a "colored man," making this identification the only one of its kind in early patent records. Bouchet was illiterate; therefore, he signed his patents with an "x". It is said that Bouchet was a freeman!

His first invention was the Seed-Planter patented which allowed farmers to plant more corn using less labor and in a shorter time. On August 31, 1836, he obtained a second patent for a cotton planter. This invention worked by splitting the ground with two shovel-like blades which were pulled along by a horse. A wheel-driven cylinder followed behind which dropped the seed into the newly plowed ground.

At the time that his patents were granted, United States patent law allowed both freed and enslaved people to obtain patents. In 1857, this law was challenged by a slave-owner who claimed that he owned "all the fruits of the slave's labor," including his slave's inventions. This resulted in a change of the law in 1858 which stated that slaves were not citizens, and therefore could not hold patents. 

Bouchet had been a successful farmer for years and developed inventions as a means of increasing efficiency in farming. Edward A Bouchet, the second African American inventor to receive a US patent died in 1860. In 1871, six years after the American Civil War ended, the law was changed to grant all men patent rights.