African American Inventors

This survey of African American inventors includes some familiar names, but more whose names are less recognizable than their work. The stories of these bright and ambitious individuals are about science, technology, and individual discovery, but also about what it means, and what it has meant, to be black in the United States. Profiles of the most prominent inventors during each era of American history illustrate how African Americans were viewed in society, as well as how they perceived themselves and how they functioned as a community through time.