Today's Black Executive February 2021 Issue by Pastoring Today

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“CELEBRATING THE PAST AND MOVING AHEAD WITH PRIDE” By nps.gov

Barbara Jordan poses for an official U.S. House of Representatives photo. U.S. House of Representatives

Barbara Charline Jordan was the third daughter born to a Baptist preacher in the greater Fifth Ward area of Houston, Texas. Jordan grew up in a religious and supportive family where she was encouraged to pursue her dreams. Early on in her academic career she grew a fond appreciation for public speech and debate. Jordan not only developed a skill for political debate and practicing law, but also developed the skill to teach the discipline as well. She graduated from the prestigious historically black Texas Southern University and in 1959, was hired to teach Political Science at the Tuskegee Institute, now the private historically black Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Jordan eventually entered into private law practice but was compelled to advocate for justice on a broader scale. After a successful campaign, she became the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction in 1966 and served until 1972. She also became the first African American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives from the South where she served from 1973 to 1979. Additionally, she became the first black female to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 1976. Over her lifetime, Jordan became a recipient of several honors and recognitions, but one of the greatest of many came when she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 by the 42nd president of the United States of America, Bill Clinton. Jordan is best remembered for her riveting remarks to the house Judiciary Committee during the impeachment hearings against the 37th president of the United States, Richard Nixon. The remarks she offered amplified American political oratory. Barbara Jordan met with untimely ailing and was the first African American woman to be buried in the Texas Senate Cemetery. The Barbara Jordan-Mikey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University is named in her honor. The Barbara Jordan Freedom Foundation was established in 2010 and is dedicated to continuing her legacy in securing truth, justice and rights for all people. TODAY'S BLACK EXECUTIVE 8

About African American History Month By www. africanamericanhistorymonth.gov February is African American History Month The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society. As a Harvard-trained historian, Carter G. Woodson, like W. E. B. Du Bois before him, believed that truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice. His hopes to raise awareness of African American's contributions to civilization was realized when he and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The response was overwhelming: Black history clubs sprang up; teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils; and progressive whites, not simply white scholars and philanthropists, stepped forward to endorse the effort. By the time of Woodson's death in 1950, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and substantial progress had been made in bringing more Americans to appreciate the celebration. At mid–century, mayors of cities nationwide issued proclamations noting Negro History Week. The Black Awakening of the 1960s dramatically expanded the consciousness of African Americans about the importance of black history, and the Civil Rights movement focused Americans of all colors on the subject of the contributions of African Americans to our history and culture. The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation's bicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” That year, fifty years after the first celebration, the association held the first African American History Month. By this time, the entire nation had come to recognize the importance of Black history in the drama of the American story. Since then each American president has issued African American History Month proclamations. And the association—now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)— continues to promote the study of Black history all year. (Excerpt from an essay by Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University, for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History) 14 TODAY'S BLACK EXECUTIVE

Marjorie S. Joyner By Archives.gov

Marjorie S. Joyner and her students from Madame Walker Beauty School, 1925 Courtesy of the Chicago Public Library

Among the first African American women to receive a patent, inventor Marjorie Stewart Joyner had an influential career as a teacher and activist.

Born in 1896 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Marjorie Stewart moved to Chicago in 1912. Four years later, she was the first African American to graduate from the A. B. Moler Beauty School and went on to open her own salon. Joyner continued her cosmetology education, eventually meeting and taking a class taught by hair care mogul Madame C. J. Walker. When Joyner met Madame C. J. Walker, proprietor of the Walker Manufacturing Company, Walker employed thousands of Black women and had the largest African American-owned company in the United States in 1917. Joyner was a teacher for and eventually became the national supervisor for Madame Walker Beauty Schools.

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Marjorie S. Joyner (continued…)

While making a pot roast, Joyner was inspired to use her pot roast rods as rollers, creating a device that applied multiple rods to the hair at once, greatly reducing the time needed to create curls and waves for women's hair. After tinkering and experimenting with different setups, Joyner came up with her one-of-a-kind permanent wave machine. The object of the invention is the construction of a simple and efficient machine that will wave the hair of both white and colored women. — Marjorie S. Joyner, 1928 Unaware that she should patent her invention, Joyner used her machine for years before she submitted her petition and drawings on May 16, 1928. Not long after, Joyner secured a second patent for her scalp protector invention.

Petition for permanent waving machine patent, May 16, 1928 National Archives at Kansas City, Records of the Patent and Trademark Office

Joyner was a devoted teacher for more than 50 years. She founded the Alpha Chi Omega Sorority and Fraternity for beauty culture students in 1945 and the United Beauty School Owners and Teachers Association a year later. She also helped draft the first cosmetology laws for the State of Illinois and was a founding member of the National Council of Negro Women.

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Marjorie S. Joyner (continued…)

Submitted drawings for permanent wave machine, 1928, Sheets 1 and 3 of 3 National Archives at Kansas City, Records of the Patent and Trademark Office

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Granville Tailer Woods TODAY'S BLACK EXECUTIVE

Granville Tailer Woods By Archives.gov Granville Tailer Woods (April 23, 1856 – January 30, 1910) was an inventor who held more than 60 patents in the U. S. He was the first African American mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he concentrated most of his work on trains and streetcars. One of his notable inventions was a device he called the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph, a variation of induction telegraph which relied on ambient static electricity from existing telegraph lines to send messages between train stations and moving trains. His work assured a safer and better public transportation system for the cities of the United States. Granville T. Woods was born to Martha J. Brown and Cyrus Woods. He had a brother named Lyates. His mother was part Native American, and his father was African American.Granville attended school in Columbus until age 10, but had to leave due to his family's poverty, which meant he needed to work; he served an apprenticeship in a machine shop and learned the trades of machinist and blacksmith. Some sources of his day asserted that he also received two years of college-level training in "electrical and mechanical engineering," but little is known about where he might have studied. In 1872, Woods obtained a job as a fireman on the Danville and Southern Railroad in Missouri. He eventually became an engineer, and in December 1874 moved to Springfield, Illinois, and worked at a rolling mill, the Springfield Iron Works. He studied mechanical and electrical engineering in college from 1876–1878 In 1878, he took a job aboard the steamer "Ironsides", and, within two years, became Chief Engineer. When he returned to Ohio, he became an engineer with the Dayton and Southwestern Railroad in southwestern Ohio. In 1880, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and established his business as an electrical engineer and an inventor. After receiving the multiplex telegraph patent, he reorganized his Cincinnati company as the Woods Electric Co. In 1892 he moved his research operations to New York City, where he was joined by his brother, Lyates Woods, who also had several inventions Granville T. Woods was often described as an articulate and well-spoken man, as meticulous and stylish in his choice of clothing, and as a man who preferred to dress in black. At times, he would refer to himself as an immigrant from Australia, in the belief that he would be given more respect if people thought he was from a foreign country, as opposed to being an African American. In his day, the black newspapers frequently expressed their pride in his achievements, saying he was "the greatest of Negro inventors", and sometimes even calling him "professor", although there is no evidence, he ever received a college degree.

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Granville Tailer Woods (continued…) The invention was so successful that Woods began the Woods Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio to market and sell his patents. However, the company quickly became devoted to invention creation until it dissolved in 1893. Thomas Edison later filed a claim to the ownership of this patent, stating that he had first created a similar telegraph and that he was entitled to the patent for the device, and Woods often had difficulties in enjoying his success as other inventors made claims to his devices. Woods was twice successful in defending himself, proving that there were no other devices upon which he could have depended or relied upon to make his device. After Thomas Edison's second defeat, he decided to offer Granville Woods a position with the Edison Company, but Granville declined. In 1888, Woods manufactured a system of overhead electric conducting lines for railroads modeled after the system pioneered by Charles van Depoele, a famed inventor who had by then installed his electric railway system in thirteen U.S. cities.

Following the Great Blizzard of 1888, New York City Mayor Hugh J. Grant declared that all wires, many of which powered the above ground rail system, had to be removed and buried, emphasizing the need for an underground system. Woods' patent built upon previous third rail systems which were used for light rails and increased the power for use on underground trains. His system relied on wire brushes to make connections with metallic terminal heads without exposing wires by installing electrical contactor rails. Once the train car had passed over, the wires were no longer live reducing the risk of injury. It was successfully tested in February 1892 in Coney Island on the Figure Eight Roller Coaster. Later that year, he was arrested and charged with libel after taking out an advertisement in a trade magazine warning against patronizing the American Engineering Company of New York City. The company had provided funds for Woods to market the invention, but a crucial component of the invention was missing from the deal which the manager of the company, James S. Zerbe, later stole. A jury acquitted Woods, but Zerbe had already patented the design in Europe and the design was valued at $1 million. Woods patented the invention in 1893 and in 1901, he sold it to General Electric. Granville T. Woods improved the Westinghouse Air Brake and Subway tunnels In 1896, Woods created a system for controlling electrical lights in theaters, known as the "safety dimmer," which was economical, safe, and efficient, saving 40% of electricity use. Woods is also sometimes credited with the invention of the air brake for trains in 1904; however, George Westinghouse patented the air brake almost 40 years prior, making Woods' contribution an improvement to the invention TODAY'S BLACK EXECUTIVE

Granville Tailer Woods (continued…) Granville T. Woods invented and patented Tunnel Construction for the electric railroad system and was referred to by some as the "Black Edison". Over the course of his lifetime Granville Woods obtained more than 50 patents for inventions including an automatic brake, an egg incubator, and for improvements to other technologies such as the safety circuit, telegraph, telephone, and phonograph.

In 1884, Woods received his first patent for a steam boiler furnace, and in 1885, Woods patented an apparatus which was a combination of a telephone and a telegraph. The device, which he called "telegraphony", would allow a telegraph station to send voice and telegraph messages through Morse code over a single wire. He sold the rights to this device to the American Bell Telephone Company. In 1887, he patented the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph which allowed communications between train stations from moving trains by creating a magnetic field around a coiled wire under the train. Woods caught smallpox prior to patenting the technology and Lucius Phelps patented it in 1884. In 1887, Woods used notes, 26 sketches and a working model of the invention to secure the patent.

Granville Tailer Woods (continued…) Woods died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Harlem Hospital in New York City on January 30, 1910, having sold a number of his devices to such companies as Westinghouse, General Electric and American Engineering. Until 1975, his resting place was an unmarked grave, but historian M.A. Harris helped to raise funds, and persuaded several of the corporations that used Woods' inventions to donate funds to purchase a headstone. It was erected at St. Michael's Cemetery in Elmhurst, Queens.

Baltimore City Community College established the Granville T. Woods scholarship in memory of the inventor. In 2004, the New York City Transit Authority organized an exhibition on Woods which utilized bus and train depots, and an issue of four million MetroCard's commemorating the inventor's achievements in pioneering the third rail. In 2006, Woods was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In April 2008, the corner of Stillwell and Mermaid Avenues in Coney Island was named Granville T. Woods Way.

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