On Thanksgiving Day in 1950, just before the family of scientist and patent holder Dr. Julian Percy was set to move into a home in the affluent Oak Park neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, becoming the first Black family to reside there, someone broke into the home, poured kerosene on the floors, and threw a firebomb through a bedroom window. Unfortunately, for Black inventors, instances like this were all too common.
Elijah McCoy, Garret Morgan, George Washington Carver, and Madame CJ Walker are names you might recognize. They’re Black inventors whose inventions modernized the world. But they may also be the only names you recognize when you think of Black inventors. Due to racism and other discriminatory structural barriers, potential Black inventors have been locked out, or in some cases violently forced out, of invention pipelines.
On this episode of Justice Above All, Dr. Kesha Moore, TMI Research Manager, takes a deep dive into the world of innovation and tracks how racism has undermined scientific innovation.
Guests:
The Lemelson Center, located inside the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History features inventions and the stories of the innovators throughout history from across the United States. The Center shines a light on historically overlooked inventors and offers hands-on activities to spark ideas and see how the innovation process works.
A study from the Equality of Opportunity Project suggests that low-income children and Black children are less likely to become inventors, and not because they’re not as good at math, science, or lack creativity, but because of racial discrimination and structural barriers that prevent them access to the necessary resources to explore innovation.
Let's broaden our definition [of innovation], right? We should put like Grandmaster Flash on the Pantheon next to Steve Jobs...And if you do that, hopefully more kids see themselves as being innovators and we reverse that vicious cycle right now.
The team at Planet Money looks at racism in patenting and sits down with economist Dr. Lisa Cook, who authored a report tracking how violent acts of racism led to the loss of hundreds of patents.
Redlining’s lingering effects are still felt, especially as it relates to education. Disparities in funding, resources, and performance still persist along the racial lines the government drew in the 1930s. These disparities still impact students today acutely, and this has a noted impact on their exposure to innovation.
