African Americans also made significant contributions to science, medicine and technology.

In 1883 Jan Matzeliger invented a machine that could manufacture an entire shoe. Up to this time, machines could cut and stitch the leather, but could not attach the upper part of the shoe to the sole. This had to be done by hand. Matzeliger invented a "lasting" machine. It could pull the leather down around the heel, and set and drive the nails, and discharge a complete shoe. He sold his invention to the United Shoe Company. This machine was so significant because it cut the cost of producing shoes in half, and the shoe company doubled its production.

Another African American inventor of the 1880s was Lewis Latimer. In 1881 he received a patent, with Joseph Nichols, for the first incandescent electric light bulb with a carbon filament. This was an improvement upon the light bulb invented by Edison in 1879. The carbon filament lasted longer. In 1882, Latimer received a patent for a process to manufacture filaments cheaply. The light bulb itself was next to useless without a cheap, long-lasting filament inside. In 1883 Edison persuaded Latimer to come and work for him and Edison Electric Light Company, which was the predecessor to Bell Labs. In 1890, Latimer wrote the first textbook on the incandescent lighting system used at the Edison Company. From 1896-1911 Latimer was the chief draftperson and expert witness for the Board of Patents Control of General Electric and Westinghouse.

Another famous inventor was Granville T. Woods. In 1887 he patented an Induction Telegraph System, which permitted communication between moving trains and between trains and stations. It was a prototype of what we today call the walky-talky. Initially it was a safety device used to prevent train accidents (crashes). In 1888 he invented an overhead conducting system for streetcars. today we refer to these streetcars connected to overhead wires as trolleys. He also invented the third rail system for subways. In addition, he developed the automatic air brake for trains (Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 268). He sold patents to General Electric, Westinghouse and American Bell. Woods even successfully defended his patents against infringement by Thomas Edison.

Yet another important black scientist and engineer was Garrett Morgan. In 1914 he invented a "smoke inhalator." It was a breathing helmet and smoke detector. The invention was the prototype for the helmets worn by firefighters, and was modified as a gas mask for soldiers in World war I. His invention won First Prize in the International Exposition of Sanitation and Safety. It was first used successfully in 1916. Twelve men were trapped in a tunnel 228 feet below lake Erie, in an underground explosion at the Cleveland Waterworks. Morgan was summoned to the scene, and rescued the men from the gas filled tunnel. Fire department s everywhere are eternally indebted to Morgan for this invention. In 1923 he invented the automatic three-way traffic light. He sold the patent to GE for $40,000.

In 1893 Dr. Nathaniel Hale Williams performed the first successful operation on the human heart. He received his medical education at Chicago Medical College, and helped to establish the largely black Provident Hospital in Chicago.. In 1913 he became the first African American member of the American College of Physicians. Hale was one of the very first African American surgeons, and a pioneer in heart surgery.

Dr. Charles Drew was a pioneer in hematology, which is the study of the blood. He was born in 1904 and died in 1950. He discovered the method of preserving blood plasma, and is the father of the blood bank. He graduated from Amherst College in 1926, and studied medicine at McGill University in Canada and Columbia Medical School. In 1940 he set up and ran the pioneer blood plasma bank at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. It became a model for the system of blood banks later developed by the American Red cross. Plasma is the clear liquid portion of the blood, with the red and white cells removed. Plasma can be stored longer than whole blood, and is used for blood transfusions. In October 1940 Drew was appointed medical director of the plasma project in Great Britain, this during World War II. In 1941 he became professor of surgery at Howard University. He was also chief surgeon at the black Freedman's Hospital at Howard University. Ironically, during World War II the blood supply was segregated. There is also a persistent rumor that Drew died from an automobile accident, in 1950, and bled to death because he would not be transported to a white hospital. Historians insist that this is not true. Dr. Drew was taken to Alamance County Hospital. It had four or five beds in the basement for black patients. It was a SEGREGATED hospital. Dr. Drew was treated (but whether he received a blood transfusion or not is debated); and died in the emergency room, and therefore was not ADMITTED to the hospital. You only get admitted if they "keep you." They don't keep you if you die in the ER (or OR). Another doctor, who was black, who was with Dr. Drew, in the car, was admitted and treated. But the hospital would not have admitted black patients above and beyond the five beds allocated to blacks, even if there ha dbeen vacant beds "reserved for whites only."

African Americans persist in believing that Dr. Drew died because he was denied medical care, anyway, despite what experts claim. Another African American man, Maltheus Avery, was turned away from the white Alamance Hospital in North Carolina in 1950, and DID bleed to death while being sent on to a black hospital. All of the "black beds" at Duke University Hospital were full, too. Avery bled to death while being transferred to yet a third hospital, the all-black Lincoln Hospital. The story of the death of Maltheus Avery became tangled up, or mixed up or confused, in popular memory, with the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Drew. This garbled story took on a life of its own and today is a folk truth. It is a "truth" that expresses the reality of racism in America in 1950. It was the kind of thing that could happen, even if it really didn't happen in this particular case. A folk truth is a truth which says, "America is such a racist country that I wouldn't be surprised if such and such a thing had happened." (Death And Resurrection of Charles Drew). The underlying truth of the Charles Drew legend relates to the fact that black people were turned away from public hospitals if the handful of black beds were full. This reflected the cruel reality that black lives had little or no value, certainly less value than a white life. The AMA did not ban discrimination by local chapters until 1968.

We all know that George Washington Carver was a famous botanist. He was born to slave parents in 1861 in Missouri, and he graduated from Iowa State College in 1894. He was the first African American to graduate from that institution. He also got his master's degree there, in 1896. From 1896 to 1943 he was a chemist and botanist at Tuskegee. He was an advocate of crop rotation. The white supremacist South was horrified when President Franklin Roosevelt invited him to the White House in 1939. He developed numerous industrial uses for the peanut and other agricultural products. He also invented "peanut butter."
 
 

Another African American scientist of note is Ernest Just. In 1907 he received his BA from Dartmouth College, and in 1916 he received his Ph.D. in zoology and physiology from the University of Chicago. He became a famous marine biologist, and became a member of the faculty at Howard university from 1912-1920, where he directed the Dept. of Physiology. He did research on fertilization, cell physiology and embryology. The Postal Service has honored him with a commemorative stamp.

Percy Julian (1899-1975) was an industrial chemist, and in 1935 he synthesized physo-stigmine, a drug used in the treatment of glaucoma. Beginning in 1937, he worked on soya protein (soy bean) products for Glidden Company, and developed a synthesis of cortisone for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 352).

We must also mention Bessie Coleman. In 1921 she graduated from the International Aeronautic Federation in France, and became the first African American female pilot. She died in a plane crash in 1926. She was the African American Amelia Airhart. Bessie Coleman was a trailblazer in two other ways. First, she preceded the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II (flight training, 1934) She was also 60 years ahead of her time, when technology moved from air flight to space travel. In 1986, Mae Jamison (born 1956) would become the first African American female to enter training as an astronaut. She completed her training in 1987, and it should be noted that she is Dr. Mae Jamison. She is a medical doctor, with a degree in chemical engineering. (Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 508).
 
 

AFRICAN AMERICAN ASTRONAUTS

For the record, the first African American male astronaut was Major Robert Lawrence, a research scientist with the Air Force, in 1967. He is not well known because he died in a plane crash in December 1967. In 1978 Frederick Gregory, Ronald McNair and Guion Bluford were named as astronauts. (In 1983 Bluford became the first African American to go into space, on a shuttle mission: Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 500). In 1986, Ronald McNair died with Christie MacAuliffe and the other members of the Challenger crew (Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 505).

TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT

As a sad footnote to the role of African Americans in science, technology and medicine, we must note that even in healthcare the virus of white supremacy reared its ugly head. White supremacy taints and infects and defiles everything that it touches. In 1972 the nation learned that beginning in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service had used 412 African American male residents of Macon County, Alabama, as subjects in a syphilis study or experiment, conducted from Tuskegee Institute. The Tuskegee Experiment did NOT GIVE syphilis to the men. These men had syphilis already, but were never told and were deliberately NOT TREATED. The Health Service deliberately withheld treatment, even after an effective treatment in the form of penicillin became available in 1946. The subjects were deliberately left untreated to study the effects of syphilis (Charles Christian, Black Saga, p. 458-459). Eventually, 100 men died of syphilis or related complications. Complications include deformed fingers and joints, and blindness. James H. Jones has published a book entitled Bad Blood on this topic, and it is the subject of a film called Ms. Evers Boys. In 1974 some of the survivors filed a class action lawsuit. The government agreed to award $35,000 to the 70 men then living, and $15,000 to the beneficiaries of those who died. As of 1993, only 17 of the 412 men were still alive.