Davyeon Ross and Bruce Ianni are the inventors of ShotTracker basketball analytics software. They also founded the ShotTracker company, based in Shawnee Mission, KS.
Photo: Startland News
Ophthalmologist Dr. Patricia Bath has 3 patents related to the Laserphaco Probe, which revolutionized cataract surgery. She is also the subject of a biographical picture book for children. Bath was an inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Class of 2022.
Photo: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Sarah Boone's design improvements to the ironing board made it easier to iron women's clothing, and gave her a competitive advantage over other dressmakers (1892).
Prince Rogers Nelson patented the design for his custom-made "keytar" in 1996. Fellow musicians Michael Jackson and Paula Abdul also hold patents.
Photo: Twitter/U.S. PTO
George Crum (née George Speck) created the potato chip in the 1853, though it's rumored to have been by accident. Crum never patented the chip nor the process to make them.
Marie van Brittan Brown and Alfred Brown's home surveillance system (1966) included a camera, a TV monitor, microphones, a “radio-controlled lock”, and an emergency button to call police.
Photo: New York Times
Janet Emerson Bashen borrowed $5,000 from her mother to launch her own company. She's the first African American woman to earn a patent for a software invention, LinkLinePlus® (2006).
Photo: Prleap
The "street letter box" was designed by Philip Downing to protect mail from theft and poor weather conditions (1891). He later invented an envelope moistening apparatus.
Ivan Yaeger received his first patent in 1987 as a student at the University of Miami. The Yaeger Prosthetic Arm was controlled through activating sensors on the human body.
Photo: IPOEF.org
National Inventors Hall of Fame's Black History Month exhibit in the lobby at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, D.C.
George Washington Carver: the man who overcame by 
George Washington Carver by African American Inventors in History. Lesson plan for grades 6-12; includes Common Core Standards. Published by the American Institute of Physics
Black Inventors - The Complete List of Genius Black American (African American) Inventors, Scientists, and Engineers with Their Revolutionary Inventions That Changed the World and Impacted History: Part One & Part Two, Interesting Engineering, 2018
Augusta County slave co-invented reaper that revolutionized agriculture. The News-Leader (VA), May 2018
4 Black Women Reimagined the Technology of the Home. Smithsonian Magazine, February 2017*
The inventor of the energy-harnessing soccer ball made a huge pivot — and it's paying off big time. Business Insider, October 2016.
Nigerian-American entrepreneur Jessica Matthews, CEO of Uncharted Power, a renewable energy tech startup. Photo: Business Insider
The Untold Story of the Man Who Called Himself the "Black Edison (inventor Garrett Morgan). Popular Mechanics, September 2016*
Drawing from US patent 1113675 (1914) for the "Morgan Safety Hood", the forerunner to today's gas mask.
* = available in print in the Library
Blacks in Science and Medicine by 
The century of the reaper; an account of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor of the reaper: of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company,...
Mothers and daughters of invention : notes for a revised history of technology
Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson by 
Black Inventors : Crafting Over 200 Years of Success by 
The real McCoy : African-American invention and innovation, 1619-1930 by 
The Inventive Spirit of African Americans: patented ingenuity by Interview with basketball icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, author of the children's book What Color Is My World: The Lost History of African-American Inventors (2018; 59 mins). Part of the "Beyond Words" multimedia collection produced by the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
Founder Julieanna Richardson talks about her motivation to launch The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history archive (1:19:00). The site provides thousands of oral histories from African Americans who have made a significant contribution in some area of American life or culture. Click here to retrieve the records for Inventors.
10 Important Black Inventors in U.S. History
A-Z List of Black and African-American inventors and inventions. Updated February 2022; compiled from work by Henry Baker, African American Author (1857-1928)
African American History Month. Virtual exhibit on Google Arts & Culture; created by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Washington D.C.
Black Inventors and Scientists Museums, Inc. Home of the Original Traveling Black Inventions Museum
BlackPast.org. Click on Tag: Occupation-Inventor or STEM-Inventors
Famous Black Inventors. Created by Biography.com
Finding aids for the Garrett A. Morgan papers and photographs at Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH
