Cool Shit Black People Invented: Phil Brooks

Who wants needles?! Well, thanks to Phil Brooks we no longer have to all share syringes. There is no picture that I could find of him because racism. In 1974 he got the patent for disposable syringes because I am assuming that before then people just used a needle, ran it under water, and just jabbed it into someone else which is just gross. Can you imagine how before Brooks made this people were just using the same damned needles? No wonder we got all these crazy ass diseases. Its our parents faults!

I really wish I could find more information about this guy but there's nothing. How can someone invent something just a few years before I was born but not have any photos available? I don't get shots done but I know a few people that work with needles and they should thank this man. Otherwise you would be giving shots to people or injecting folks and just rinsing it off in the sink and using them all over again. I'm sorry, I can't get over how nasty that is. Thanks, Mr. Brooks!

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Cool Shit Black People Invented: Henry Blair

Henry Blair was the second Black person to ever get a patent. I could just leave it at that because that shit is nuts. Could you imagine creating something and not being able to get people to look at it or even acknowledge that you created it because of the color of your skin? Well, that was just how things were back then. Stupid country. Blair's first patent was for what he called a seed-planter which is basically a plow. I can't begin to imagine what it was like before he made this thing.

With this it let workers plant corn faster, easier, and with less labor. You may notice that most early inventions by Black people were things to make life just easier on Black labor (farming equipment and cleaning tools) or to fit in (hair straighteners). He also created the cotton planter. If you don't know what this is just picture in those old cartoons where a horse would be pulling a huge blade and it would leave a slice in the ground for seeds to be dropped in. He was already a farmer and doing well because of his inventions.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: William B. Purvis

Back in the day people used to write using a feather and ink like a bunch of weirdos or sucking ink into a pen with a jar sitting there next to them which is just ridiculous when you think about it. That is until William B. Purvis decided that he was tired of watching people look like fools and created an ink pen that could hold ink itself thereby keeping you from walking around with a jar of ink looking for a table to put it on and dip your stupid pen into.

"I do believe I've soiled my dickie!"

In 1890 Purvis got the patent for this and pretty much made the bottle of ink carrying stuff silly to continue doing. Old fashioned nerds all over the world were probably super happy about this. See, kids. Years ago people use to use their hands, those things you use to text with, to put an ink pen to paper and send letters to each other. This was made easier when you could carry a pen with you by itself.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Valerie Thomas (plus bonus inventor)

Back when Valerie Thomas was a kid there was no place in science for women unless it was a movie and she was an evil lab assistant or something. But she was all like nuts to that nonsense and decided that even though she was a Black woman that she was gonna create cool shit. Most of the science related stuff was for boys and she attended an all girl school which was the equivalent of a year long slumber party. So after graduation she pursued science.

She graduated from Morgan State University with a degree in physics and accepted a spot at NASA. After a while they asked her if she could take over a project called Landsat that would let satellites project images from space. She started tinkering with an idea she saw at a seminar that showed an illusion that made it look like a light was still glowing even after it was turned off. She was like “Oh, I got this.” What she pretty much was working on was a hologram.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Thomas Elkins

Back in the 1870's things were strange. Honestly, I''m surprised that we managed to make it past the year 2ad. Black people weren't equal, peanut technology wasn't being taken advantage of, and we kept food cool by just surrounding it with ice because since we were only living until 40 anyway, why not eat some lukewarm meat? Enter Thomas Elkins of Albany, New York. This is the best picture I could find because history.

That looks very...coffiny.

This new version of cooling was made using coils made of metal that worked way better than just sitting your stuff on a block of ice and going “I guess that's taken care of.” No. Your food is still going bad, stupid. People eventually found out that this was good at keeping bodies cold too so that became a thing. Hopefully on purpose. Please be on purpose.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Patricia Bath

Dr. Patricia Bath was born in Harlem, New York and like me believes that lasers are awesome and can be used for things more than scaring the bejeezus out of your enemies. She received a patent for a laser that is used to remove cataracts more better. That was a terribly written sentence. Don't quote me on that one. She created this thing that could more accurately remove cataracts because before then I believe it was like “I think we got it...”

She is to blindness what kicking knees is to Anderson Silva: destructive. She hates blindness more than anyone you'll ever meet. She sees blindness and just goes “Ungh...” and clinches her beautiful little Black fists. Before her patent...one second. Why don't we hear of people we know getting patents? Its not like we ever hear “Oh, yeah. Dante is getting a patent on that pill he's developing that gives you wet dreams.” As I was saying, before she made this they were using drilling and grinding to remove then. Can you imagine that shit?! I can and it makes my ass clinch so fast it whistles.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Lonnie George Johnson

Today's inventor Lonnie George Johnson created something that while it hasn't changed the world, it changed a lot of lives. Mostly for the better if you were on the giving end of his invention. Born in Mobile, Alabama in 1949 he realized that he was destined for great things. In college he got a B.S in mechanical Engineering and a M.S in Nuclear Engineering from Tuskegee University. And then he said fuck all that and created this!

Yeah!!!

That's right! The Super Soaker. In 1989 he created this and licensed it to Larami Corporation and within two years it made over $200 million which was then bought by Hasbro. He took all the money he made from this and put it into two of his separate companies that do things, like, oh I don't know, creating all kinds of new energy science shit! He is making new ways to use his Johnson Thermo Electrochemical Convertor System for work with solar and thermal power uses.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Garrett Morgan

Sometimes there is a man so great that he just throws the curve off so much that there's no damned way for anyone to try and keep up unless they invent time travel. This Black inventor Garrett Morgan decided that creating just one thing but at least three that helped change the course of history was not too big for him. Well, two changed history for the world. The other for Black people that hated having kinky ass hair.

Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky to former slaves on my birthday...but 101 years earlier. At 14 he had to quit school to make money and moved to Ohio and looked for work, mostly as a handyman. Since he was a super genius he had enough money to hire himself a tutor. Later while working as a sewing machine repairman he created a belt fastener for sewing machines. He and his second wife ended up starting their own businesses called Morgan's Cut Rate Ladies Clothing Store.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Joseph Richard Winters

A few years ago I started doing these Cool Shit Black People Invented blogs to point out the amount of stuff that wasn't being taught in school during Black History Month aka 28 Days Of A White Teacher Telling A Room Full Of Black Kids How People That Looked Like Her Beat The Hell Out Of Them. In school as far as I knew Black people made peanut butter, the cotton gin, and somehow built a train that ran underground that helped Black folks escape. So allow me to shed some light on other things Black people created.

Fire bad. I think we all learned that at one point in our childhood. If not, let me be the first to tell you: fire hurts. Thankfully Joseph Richard Winters created the escape ladder that attaches to windows so that we can attempt to get out of burning buildings because, like I said, fire bad. He received the patent for this ladder in 1882 which means for thousands of years people just stood at flaming windows wondering why they slept with the candle on their chest. 

The First Black: Secret Service Agent

Charles Leroy Gittens, not to be confused with Leroy Jenkins who has a penchant for ruining carefully laid plans was the first African American to ever become a Secret Service agent. This was back in 1956 where Black people were barely allowed to breathe the same air as other Americans so this was kind of a big deal. Again, much like with my Cool Shit Black People Invented that I did last February for Black History Month, this is the type of shit I should've been learning in school. Here's what I learned about Blacks in school.

We were chilling in Africa.

Some White folks came and stole us.

These White people beat the fuck out of us and loved cotton but didn't want to pick it themselves.

We were freed but not really.

Its March now, so shut up with the questions, kid.

Can you imagine how scary that job must’ve been? You couldn’t even drink from the same fountains as most people but you were part of the most important security team ever. You had to watch the bushes and your back. And the Bush’s. Get it? Huh?! Yeah. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts Gittens left high school before graduation to fight in the Korean War. After that he earned a bachelor of arts degree in English and Spanish and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Afterwards he taught for one year and said “Teaching ain’t as fun as plottin’!“ then took the civil service exam and ended up being recruited in the Secret Service.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Henry Thomas Sampson, Jr.

Today’s entry of Cool Shit Black People Invented is kinda hard for me. I mean, I know that his invention is very useful. Its just that I don’t use it. Millions of people do. I am the only person I know that doesn’t so that makes me, Dante, the weirdo. Well, that and my four foot long tail and knees that bend in the opposite direction. Besides that I’m totally just like all of you.

Henry Thomas Sampson Jr. created a device that some of you are using right now. Or you just did. Maybe you’re even using it to read this blog. Which would be weird because you wouldn’t be able to read all the funny shit I add in my captions. Sampson (“Fly me to the moon like that bitch Alice Kramden, ‘cause it’s hard being Black an’ gifted!”) created the cell phone!

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Joseph H. Dickinson

Once again I had a problem finding a picture of this weeks Cool Shit Black People Invented. This weeks invention is a good one by the way. Without it life as we know it would be completely different. I’m serious! If this guy hadn’t invented his invention parties as we know it wouldn’t exist.

Joseph H. Dickinson got the patent in 1819 for the record player arm. Now, I know a lot of younger readers are going “What the hell website have I stumbled onto where this Black dude talks shit to everyone and talks about fighting animals?” or “What is a record player?”

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Charles B. Brooks

I don’t think we appreciate how good we have it when it comes to technology. Like photos for example. No, I don’t think a Black guy created the camera. I say this because I cant even find a damned picture of the guy whose invention I want to discuss.

Back in the day, like way back, people would have paintings that made them look better than they did in real life. Like, if I had a painting I would have eleven rock hard abs and four arms. Because to me that rules. But this isn’t about me and my twisted fantasies. This is about Cool Shit Black People Invented.

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Alexander Miles

Something I’m starting to realize while looking up stuff for the Cool Shit Black People Invented is that people don’t like to give credit to Black people. While looking up the next inventor there are a lot of things that say he didn’t even invent the shit.

Blacks have created a lot of stuff that we use all the time and have no idea that they did it. Mostly because back in the day Black people didn’t get kudos for things. It wasn’t like “Thanks, Obadiah. If you hadn’t created this thing we’d all be falling to our deaths!”

Cool Shit Black People Invented: Frederick McKinley Jones

Back when I was a kid every February we would learn all about Black History. For everyone this month brings either joy or annoyance. I have to admit that for me back in the day it was a lot of annoyance. I mean I had a perfectly good reason.

As a Black kid I thought it was weird because many of my teachers were White and all we would hear was “People who looked just like me took your ancestors from Africa in chains, beat them, made them slaves, freed them, treated them like shit, and…now its March and we wont discuss this until next year!”

That was a total mind fuck for me as a child. Sometimes it was all about slavery and then other times we’d hear about the inventor of peanut butter or the cotton gin. As much as I love peanut butter and soft t-shirts there had to be something else that Black people made.

So one day I had to search. Surely Black people had to have done something else with their lives back in the day! Imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I found out that there was so much shit that we use every goddamn day that Black had invented. So this is the first of…well until this month is over of Blacks that created cool shit that you might not have known about.