Imagine this. Manually opening an elevator door. Coke Cola and Coco Chanel but without that hint of vanilla that you love. No such thing as CCTV. These are just a few of the inventions that we use and enjoy daily, thanks to the ingenuity of black inventors.
You likely haven’t given a second thought to their genesis, but even if you had, sadly these stories have often been whitewashed, unrecorded or lost in the annuls of history, so you wouldn’t know them as they really are anyway.
It’s time to change that and celebrate the incredible black men and women that have helped to shape the world as we know it, and in so doing inspire a generation of black youth to aspire to and achieve greatness.
Read on to discover just some of the life affirming stories that you will find in We Were Always Here – Stories of Black Inventors Across the African Diaspora.
We can make phone calls via the internet due to the work of a black female inventor.
- It is an African American female inventor that holds the patent for the CCTV.
- The reason why we can afford numerous pairs of shoes in our lifetime is due to a black inventor from Suriname.
Automatic elevator doors were invented by an African American entrepreneur.
We enjoy vanilla perfume (including Chanel), cola drinks and vanilla cake thanks to the invention of a unique pollination technique for the vanilla pod in the 1830’s. The inventor was 12 at the time - an orphaned African child slave from an island in the Indian Ocean. He never received any credit or compensation for making many, many people and countries rich.
In 2019 a black South African doctor and inventor performed the first 3D ear transplant.
A seTswana entrepreneur invented the Pelebox, a revolutionary way for rural people to access their medication, thereby alleviating long hours in queues for sickly patients.
Fact. Many black people don’t know that black people are inventors and many white people don’t believe that black people are inventors, let alone the originators of so many life-changing developments.
We Were Always Here hopes to change these misconceptions by showing future generations of black inventors, entrepreneurs, business leaders and pioneers that they too can shape the world.
The book is divided into two parts with the first focusing on the Modern Era where we highlight African inventors across the world who have contributed to STEM. Included here, are black inventors and entrepreneurs who have developed African solutions that are particular to Africa problems.