• Dr. Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist and laser scientist, invented the Laserphaco Probe and techniques that improved cataract surgery.
• Marc Hannah, Ph.D., a renowned engineer, is the inventor of 3D technology for special effects, which advanced cinematography in films and television.
• Shirley Ann Jackson was the first African American woman to earn a doctorate from MIT. She was also the first woman in the history of MIT to receive a Ph.D. in physics. Her research influenced the invention of fiber optics cable, caller ID, call waiting and solar cells.
• Marc Dean, Ph.D., was a co-inventor of the personal computer and the color monitor.
• Marie Van Brittan Brown created the original design of security systems that are used today. She filed a patent for her closed-circuit TV invention in 1966.
• Jesse Eugene Russell (photo above) is widely credited for conceptualizing and creating the foundational technology of the smartphone. He holds several patents in mobile and wireless technology.
• Garrett Augustus Morgan Sr. was the inventor of the three-position traffic signal of which our contemporary stoplights are derived. He also designed a protective hood that prevented smoke inhalation. This gear design evolved to what we use today as a gas mask.

Story by Theresa Dear

Deseret News via msn.com

•The 2025 Black History Month theme, African Americans, and Labor, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people.

• Work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture. Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice.

"The 2025 Black History Month theme, African Americans and Labor, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture. Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora."

(ASALH 2025 Statement on the Theme of Black History Month)