Garrett Morgan of Cleveland, Ohio realized the need to control the flow of traffic. A gifted inventor and reportedly the first African American to own an automobile in Cleveland, Ohio, he invented the electric automatic traffic light. Though it looked more like the semaphore signals you see at train crossings today.
Many others had obtained US Patents for Traffic Signals, some as early as 1918. But Morgan's Patent was purchased by General Electric Corporation and provided the protection they needed to begin building a monopoly on traffic light manufacture.
Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4 1877 – August 27, 1963) was
an inventor who invented a type of respiratory protective hood
(conceptually similar to modern gas masks), a type of traffic signal, and a hair-straightening
preparation. He is renowned for a heroic rescue in which he used his
hood to save workers trapped in a tunnel system filled with fumes. He is
credited as the first African-American in Cleveland to own an
automobile.Benjamin Banneker (November 9, 1731 – October 9, 1806) was a free African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac author and farmer.
{before taking this biography as the absolute
truth, I suggest you read the letters
of corrections to the biography}
Molly Walsh emigrated from England to the colony
Maryland as an indentured slave in bondage for seven years. When
her servitude ended, Molly purchased a farm along the Patapsco
River near Baltimore. and two slaves. In time she set the slaves
free and married one of them, a man named Bannaky (changed from
Banna Ka). They had several children, one a daughter named Mary.
Mary Bannaky grew up, purchased a slave, Robert, whom she later
married and lived on the family farm. On Nov. 9, 1731, a son,
Benjamin, was born to Robert and Mary Bannaky.Using the Bible, Molly Bannaky taught Mary's children to read, and soon after, Benjamin would read the bible to his mother and grandmother. For those times, life was good to this little community, but work was hard, but not challenging to Benjamin. He learned to play the flute and the violin, and when a Quaker school opened in the valley, Benjamin attended it during the winter where he learned to write and elementary arithmetic. He had an eighth-grade education by time he was 15, at which time he took over the operations for the family farm. He devised an irrigation system of ditches and little dams to control the water from the springs (known around as Bannaky Springs) on the family farm. Their tobacco farm flourished even in times of drought.
Banneker became fascinated with the patent watch of a friend, Josef Levi. Levi gave Benjamin the watch and he took it apart to 'study its workings." Banneker then carved similar watch pieces out of wood to make, in1752, a wooden clock. Due to its precision (it struck every hour, on the hour, and continued to do so nearly forty years) the clock brought fame to young Banneker. Thus he began a watch and clock repair business. Further, he helped another famous Marylander, the industrialist Joseph Ellicott, to build a complex clock. Banneker and the Ellicott brothers became friends.
Joseph Ellicott was an amateur mathematician and astronomer and lent Banneker books on astronomy and mathematics as well as instruments for observing the stars. Banneker taught himself astronomy and advanced mathematics and, in 1773, he began to devote serious attention to both subjects. He successfully predicted the solar eclipse that occurred on April 14, 1789, contradicting the forecasts of prominent mathematicians and astronomers of the day.
Banneker's habits of study appear odd to the non-scientist. It is said that on many nights, he would wrap himself in a great cloak and lie under a pear tree and meditate on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. He would remain there throughout the night and take to his bed at dawn.
As reported in the Georgetown Weekly Ledger March 12, 1791, when Banneker was 60, he was appointed, by President George Washington, to a three man team of surveyors headed by Major Andrew Ellicott, Joseph's cousin, to survey the future District of Columbia. Banneker, the paper said, was "an Ethiopian whose abilities as surveyor and astronomer already prove that Mr. [Thomas] Jefferson's concluding that that race of men were void of mental endowment was without foundation."
Banneker and Ellicott worked closely with Pierre L'Enfant, the architect in charge. However, L'Enfant could not control his temper and was fired. He left, taking all the plans with him. But Banneker saved the day by recreating the plans from memory.
Also in 1791, Banneker created and published his acclaimed Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Almanac and Ephemeris. In 1792 Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, white supremacist, and slave owner pronounced Blacks mathematically inferior. In response to Jefferson, Benjamin Banneker sent a copy of his almanac along with a twelve page twelve page letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson requesting aid in improving the lot of American Blacks.
Banneker's Almanac's were compared favorable with Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richards's Almanac. However, in 1802 he stopped publishing his Almanac due to poor sales.
Banneker lived for four years after his almanacs discontinued. He published a treatise on bees, did a mathematical study on the cycle of the seventeen-year locust, and became a pamphleteer for the anti-slavery movement. He continued scientific studies by night and walked his land by day. He also continued to keep his garden. He hosted many distinguished scientists and artists of his day, and his visitors commented on his intelligence and on his knowledge of everything of importance that was happening in the country. As always, he remained precise and reflective in his conversations with others. His last walk (with a friend) came on October 9, 1806, he complained of being ill and went home to rest on his couch. He died later that day.
The material garnered for this web page came form several
books; however, it appears that we are in the middle of a debate.Note: Below are letters I received from scholars, I am most thankful of their input into this web page.
Letters of correction
Letter 1
Much of the [Benjamin Banneker] information you have seems to be part of the legends rather than the facts about Banneker. I will just give you one or two examples:
- There is no record that Banneker received and 8th grade education. He more likely recieved a "rudimentary elementary education" as Bedini states.
- There is no record of a Josef Levi connected to the watch Banneker "borrowed." and used to design his wooden clock.
- There is no evidence that Banneker helped Joseph Ellicott make the famous clock which is housed at the Smithsonia.. Ellicott made it in Pennsylvania before he moved to Ellicott Mills where through his nephew he met Banneker. According to Bedini they had not other relationship other than seeing the clock.
- George Ellicott was the person with whom Banneker had a ongoing relationship through the shairng of books and instruments.
- Banneker did not work with L'Enfant. Banneker returned home in April 1791. L'Enfant was appointed in March 1791 to a very different job and worked at that job until March 1792. They would never have met and Bannaker would never have seen L'Enfant's plans which were, according to him, still incomplete in 1792.
- L'Enfant still has the plans and lived just outside Washington until he died in 1825. He is (now) buried at Arlington Cemetery but refused an appointment as professor at West Point.
Your Thomas Jefferson quote about the inferiority of Blacks is accurate in content, but not in source. It does not come from 1792 when he was Secretary of State. It is a written quote from his "Notes on the State of Virginia" which was published in 1781 and 1782. Specifically this quote can be found in Query 14 of those notes. You can find the document at the University of Virginia's on-line archives [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/], if you like.
Thus your statement that Benjamin Banneker's famous letter to Jefferson was specifically in response to this quote from Jefferson is also not correct. Banneker's letter was sent in 1791, about 10 years after Jefferson wrote those words.
Views on slavery and racial equality
Banneker expressed his views on slavery and racial equality in a letter to Thomas Jefferson and in other documents that he placed within his 1793 almanac. The almanac contained copies of his correspondence with Jefferson, poetry by the African American poet Phillis Wheatley and by the English anti-slavery poet William Cowper, and anti-slavery speeches and essays from England and America.Letter to Thomas Jefferson on racism
On August 19, 1791, after departing the federal capital area, Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1776 had drafted the United States Declaration of Independence and in 1791 was serving as the United States Secretary of State. Quoting language in the Declaration, the letter expressed a plea for justice for African Americans. To further support this plea, Banneker included within the letter a handwritten manuscript of an almanac for 1792 containing his ephemeris with his astronomical calculations.In the letter, Banneker accused Jefferson of criminally using fraud and violence to oppress his slaves by stating:
…Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.The letter ended:
And now, Sir, I shall conclude, and subscribe myself, with the most profound respect,An English abolitionist, Thomas Day, had earlier written in a 1776 letter:
Your most obedient humble servant,
BENJAMIN BANNEKER.
If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.Thomas Jefferson's own actions and statements on slavery and on the treatment of slaves were ambiguous and paradoxical (see: Thomas Jefferson and slavery). He reportedly instructed overseers at his home at Monticello to not whip his slaves, but the overseers often ignored his wishes during his frequent absences. A researcher has found no reliable document that portrays Jefferson in the act of applying physical correction.
Thomas Jefferson's reply to Banneker
Without directly responding to Banneker's accusation, Jefferson replied to Banneker's letter in a series of nuanced statements that expressed his interest in the advancement of the equality of America's black population.Jefferson's reply stated:Philadelphia Aug. 30. 1791.Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, to whom Jefferson sent Banneker's almanac, was a noted French mathematician and abolitionist. It appears that the Academy of Sciences itself did not receive the almanac.
Sir,
I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th. instant and for the Almanac it contained. no body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstance which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic society because I considered it as a document to which your whole colour had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them. I am with great esteem, Sir,
Your most obedient. humble servant.
Th. Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Marquis de Condorcet
When writing his letter, Banneker informed Jefferson that his 1791 work with Andrew Ellicott on the District boundary survey had affected his work on his 1792 ephemeris and almanac by stating:.... And although I had almost declined to make my calculation for the ensuing year, in consequence of that time which I had allotted therefor, being taken up at the Federal Territory, by the request of Mr. Andrew Ellicott, ....On the same day that he replied to Banneker (August 30, 1791), Jefferson sent a letter to the Marquis de Condorcet that contained the following paragraph relating to Banneker's race, abilities, almanac and work with Andrew Ellicott:
I am happy to be able to inform you that we have now in the United States a Negro, the son of a black man born in Africa, and of a black woman born in the United States, who is a very respectable Mathematician. I promised him to be employed under one of our chief directors in laying out the new federal city on the Potomac, and in the intervals of his leisure, while on that work, he made an almanac for the next year, which he sent to me in his own handwriting, & which I inclose to you. I have seen very elegant solutions of Geometrical problems by him. add to this that he is a very respectable member of society. he is a free man. I shall be delighted to see these instances of moral eminence so multiplied as to prove that the want of talent observed in them is merely the effect of their degraded condition, and not proceeding from any difference in the structure of the parts on which intellect depends.
Thomas Jefferson's later opinion of Banneker and his letter
In 1809, three years after Banneker's death, Jefferson expressed a different opinion of Banneker in a letter to Joel Barlow that criticized a "diatribe" that a French abolitionist, Henri Grégoire, had written in 1808:The whole do not amount, in point of evidence, to what we know ourselves of Banneker. We know he had spherical trigonometry enough to make almanacs, but not without the suspicion of aid from Ellicot, who was his neighbor and friend, and never missed an opportunity of puffing him. I have a long letter from Banneker, which shows him to have had a mind of very common stature indeed.
1 photo
Quick Facts
- NAME: Frederick Douglass
- OCCUPATION: Civil Rights Activist
- BIRTH DATE: c. February 1818
- DEATH DATE: February 20, 1895
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Tuckahoe, Maryland
more about Frederick
Best Known For
Frederick Douglass, a former slave and eminent human rights leader in the abolition movement, was the first black citizen to hold a high U.S. government rank.Synopsis
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on February 1818?,
in Tuckahoe, Maryland. In 1838 he fled. After speaking at a 1841
antislavery convention he felt impelled to write his autobiography in
1845. While speaking abroad, Douglass helped to win many supporters for
abolition and for humanitarian reform. During the Civil War Douglass
became a consultant to President Abraham Lincoln.
Quotes
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. . . . Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
– Frederick Douglass
Profile
(born February 1818?, Tuckahoe, Maryland, U.S.—died February 20, 1895, Washington, D.C.) African American who was one of the most eminent human-rights leaders of the 19th century. His oratorical and literary brilliance thrust him into the forefront of the U.S. abolition movement, and he became the first black citizen to hold high rank in the U.S. government.Separated as an infant from his slave mother (he never knew his white father), Frederick lived with his grandmother on a Maryland plantation until, at age eight, his owner sent him to Baltimore to live as a house servant with the family of Hugh Auld, whose wife defied state law by teaching the boy to read. Auld, however, declared that learning would make him unfit for slavery, and Frederick was forced to continue his education surreptitiously with the aid of schoolboys in the street. Upon the death of his master, he was returned to the plantation as a field hand at 16. Later, he was hired out in Baltimore as a ship caulker. Frederick tried to escape with three others in 1833, but the plot was discovered before they could get away. Five years later, however, he fled to New York City and then to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a labourer for three years, eluding slave hunters by changing his surname to Douglass.
At a Nantucket, Massachusetts, antislavery convention in 1841, Douglass was invited to describe his feelings and experiences under slavery. These extemporaneous remarks were so poignant and naturally eloquent that he was unexpectedly catapulted into a new career as agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. From then on, despite heckling and mockery, insult, and violent personal attack, Douglass never flagged in his devotion to the abolitionist cause.
To counter skeptics who doubted that such an articulate spokesman could ever have been a slave, Douglass felt impelled to write his autobiography in 1845, revised and completed in 1882 as Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Douglass's account became a classic in American literature as well as a primary source about slavery from the bondsman's viewpoint. To avoid recapture by his former owner, whose name and location he had given in the narrative, Douglass left on a two-year speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland. Abroad, Douglass helped to win many new friends for the abolition movement and to cement the bonds of humanitarian reform between the continents.
Douglass returned with funds to purchase his freedom and also to start his own antislavery newspaper, the North Star (later Frederick Douglass's Paper), which he published from 1847 to 1860 in Rochester, New York. The abolition leader William Lloyd Garrison disagreed with the need for a separate, black-oriented press, and the two men broke over this issue as well as over Douglass's support of political action to supplement moral suasion. Thus, after 1851 Douglass allied himself with the faction of the movement led by James G. Birney. He did not countenance violence, however, and specifically counseled against the raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (October 1859).
During the Civil War (1861–65) Douglass became a consultant to President Abraham Lincoln, advocating that former slaves be armed for the North and that the war be made a direct confrontation against slavery. Throughout Reconstruction (1865–77), he fought for full civil rights for freedmen and vigorously supported the women's rights movement.
After Reconstruction, Douglass served as assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission (1871), and in the District of Columbia he was marshal (1877–81) and recorder of deeds (1881–86); finally, he was appointed U.S. minister and consul general to Haiti (1889–91).
Frederick Douglass video
http://www.biography.com/people/groups/activists/african-american/all
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