Black History Month

Black History Month Facts

BY BARBARA WOMACK

To date, our history books have missed so many facts and truths about the contributions that African Americans have made to this country and the world.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Consequently, African Americans who came into this country with little more than their ingenuity and okra seeds braided into their hair braids, learned to invent what they needed and create what they wanted in order to survive this strange land. Here I have compiled some interesting and somewhat amazing facts about the African American race.

1. Today, we can thank Garrett Morgan for our safe roads. In 1923, he was granted a patent for a traffic control device which added a third warning signal, the yellow light, to the red and green stop light. He later sold this device to General Electric for $40,000. He also became the first African American to own a car in Cleveland, Ohio.

2. On July 2, 1777, Vermont became the first colony to ban slavery and the Vermont legislature moved to provide full voting rights to African American men.

3. George "Crum" Speck, an African American Chef and restaurant owner, is said to have created the potato chip when in 1853 he accidently dropped a sliced potato in a hot frying pan and this created the famous Saratoga chips. Speck's potato chips remained a local delicacy in New York until 1920 when a salesman named Herman Lay of (Lays Potato Chips), began traveling throughout the south taking credit for and selling potato chips to different communities.

4. The cartoon character Betty Boop was based on an African American jazz singer named Esther Jones. Jones was known for her use of "boops" in her singing which was called a child-like scat.

5. Nashville is home to four Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that gave educational opportunities for many African Americans who were legally denied education: American Baptist College, Fisk University, Meharry Medical College and Tennessee State University.

6. Glenda Baskin Glover, current president of Tennessee State University is a Certified Public Accountant, an Attorney and holds a PhD. She is one of two African Americans to hold the PhD-CPA-JD combination in the United States.

7. Oprah Winfrey got her start as a female anchor at Channel 5, WTVF while she was a student at Tennessee State University.

8. After making the jump from gospel to secular music in 1960, Aretha Franklin's earliest years as an R&B singer included a four night run at The New Era Club on Jefferson Street in Nashville.

8. One of the few things that survived The Middle Passage, which was the voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, were the card games. Though most of their culture, songs, and languages were stripped from them, slave owners allowed the slaves to play card games because it helped their counting skills. The card games of Bid Whist, Bridge and Spades were born.

9. Before becoming a professional musician, Chuck Berry studied to become a hairdresser and had a degree in cosmetology.

10. The theme song to public television's popular children's program, Reading Rainbow, is sung by Chaka Khan.

11. Martin Luther King was assassinated on the 40th birthday of Maya Angelou.

12. W.E.B. Dubois was the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard University.

13. The following items are some of the many inventions by African Americans: The folding bed, the lawn sprinkler system, the lantern, the hair straightening comb, the lemon press, the sponge mop, the pencil sharpener, the street sweeper, and a device for rolling cigarettes . Enslaved people did not have fancy pots and pans, they made cookware out of undesirable cast iron.

14. Sammy Davis, Jr. was the first Black entertainer to sleep in the White House.

15. The first Black Greek letter sorority was Alpha Kappa Alpha, founded at Howard University in 1908.

16. Thomas L. Jennings is believed to be the first African American to receive a patent for a dry cleaning process on March 3, 1821.

17. Jimi Hendrix came to Nashville in l962 to perform at the El Morocco Club on Jefferson Street. He lived rent free in an apartment over a beauty salon on Jefferson Street. At 22 years old, Hendrix made his television debut on a Nashville show called Night Train

18. Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole is the only African American woman to have served as president of both Spelman College and Bennett College for women, two historically Black colleges for women in the United States.

19. In 1973, Stevie Wonder was the first African American to win a Grammy for Album of the Year for his album Innervisions

20. And finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Charlane Oliver won the Nov. 8, 2022 election to replace Sen. Brenda Gilmore as the Tennessee State Senator for District 19 in Nashville.