This list of African-American inventors and scientists attempts to document many of the African Americans who have invented a multitude of items or made discoveries in the course of their lives. These have ranged from practical everyday devices to applications and scientific discoveries in diverse fields, including physics, biology, mathematics, plus the medical, nuclear and space sciences.
Among the earliest was George Washington Carver, whose reputation was based on his research into and promotion of alternative crops to cotton, which aided in nutrition for farm families. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops both as a source of their own food and as a source of other products to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts.[1] He also developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm.[citation needed] He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. Continue reading →
20 Significant Technology Innovators In Black History
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 Maria J. Avila-López/Mercury News
Gerald A. Lawson
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 today. Lawson, who died last year at age 70, is just beginning to be recognized by the gaming industry for his pioneering work.
James E. West
Without West, rappers wouldn’t be able to rock the mic. West, along with Gerhard M. Sessler, helped develop the electroacoustic transducer electret microphone, for which they received a patent in 1962. Their invention was acoustically accurate, lightweight and cost-effective. Ninety percent of microphones in use today — including those in telephones, tape recorders and camcorders — are based on their original concept.
Guyana Gov’t to amend CARICOM Skilled Nationals Act
(Capitol News – February 5, 2014) – Under the CARICOMSingle Market and Economy (CSME), various skilled nationals obtain a skills certificate and are free to travel across the region and work without having to obtain a work permit, but under the current system, their spouses cannot, and by law their children are not allowed access to education and healthcare. But, the government here is hoping to change that by amending the Skills National Act.
Other CARICOM states are obligated to also amend their laws to allow spouses of skilled nationals to work without a work permit, but Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett said the government is not waiting on others before fulfilling its obligations. Continue reading →
Twenty years ago, in February 1994, I published a lengthy cover story in The Atlantic Monthly, “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet.”
I argued that the combination of resource depletion (like water), demographic youth bulges and the proliferation of shanty towns throughout the developing world would enflame ethnic and sectarian divides, creating the conditions for domestic political breakdown and the transformation of war into increasingly irregular forms — making it often indistinguishable from terrorism. Continue reading →
(picture of Benedict Cumberbatch in movie: ’12 years a Slave’)
High above Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, is a range of hills known locally as the ‘Scotland District’ on account of its uncanny resemblance to the Highlands.
Here, roughly 45 minutes’ drive along a Tarmac road and then a dusty track, past endless acres of sugar cane swaying gently in the breeze, is a weather-beaten white stone archway announcing that you have arrived at the Cleland Plantation.
The owner, 66-year-old Stephen Tempro, has lived here since 1985, eking out a modest living from the small herds of cattle and goats that graze his 150-odd acres, along with a smattering of small fruit and vegetable plots. Continue reading →
Without 
(picture of Benedict Cumberbatch in movie: ’12 years a Slave’) 
