Sold: An 1891 Patent by Granville T. Woods, Innovative Black Engineer; Atlas Obscura, July 22, 2020

Matthew Taub, Atlas Obscura; Sold: An 1891 Patent by Granville T. Woods, Innovative Black Engineer

Woods was prolific, but was largely forgotten for many years after his death.

"Beginning during Woods’s lifetime, trade publications and other newspapers took to calling Woods the “Black Edison,” a nickname that reflected the virtual absence of Black Americans in engineering during Reconstruction and the late 19th century. That reality haunted Woods, who, according to a recent belated obituary in The New York Times, often said that he was born in Australia in order to distance himself from the strictures of America’s racial hierarchy. Though Woods found (relatively) more financial success later in life, after selling a series of inventions to the likes of General Electric and George Westinghouse—including an early version of the “dead man’s brake,” which can stop a train with an incapacitated conductor—he was still deprived of the recognition that others in his field enjoyed. In fact, despite working at the top of his field, alongside figures such as Westinghouse, Woods was buried in an unmarked grave in Queens, which only received a stone in 1975.

His life is a lesson not only in science and innovation, but also in the precariousness of legacy. Inventors, says Fouché—both those who enjoy credit and those who are denied it—rarely innovate in isolation. Many brilliant minds work simultaneously on the same problem, and for reasons of prejudice, luck, or law, just a few of them enter the historical record."

“Keep on Pushing” Celebrating the life and career of E. J. Josey; American Libraries, June 27, 2020

Phil Morehart , American Libraries; “Keep on Pushing”

Celebrating the life and career of E. J. Josey

[Kip Currier: Uplifting article about the late E.J. Josey, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences and indefatigable champion for full inclusion of Black Americans during the tumultuous 1960's Civil Rights era and beyond. Dr. Josey was a consummate challenger of barriers to equality. His life and this article inform one of several capstone essays that graduate students in my inaugural LIS 2040: The Information Professional in Communities course are writing this month:

Reflection Essay 1: Breaking Down Barriers to Access by Communities

1. Barriers to information and resources are prevalent and persistent for many kinds of analog and digital communities. Read this 6/27/20 American Libraries article, “Keep On Pushing”: Celebrating the life and career of E.J. Josey. (see https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/keep-on-pushing/). The late E.J. Josey was a professor at Pitt’s School of Library and Information Sciences and was a “transformative force and leader” whose entire life was about breaking down barriers:

At the 1964 ALA Annual Conference in St. Louis, Josey “did something extraordinary” by putting forth a resolution to prevent the Association from working with Southern state library chapters that refused membership to Black librarians. “All hell broke loose,” said [Prof. Renate] Chancellor, quoting Josey, but the resolution passed.” https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/keep-on-pushing/

In a 750 – 1,000 word essay, identify and discuss at least one barrier that information professionals face in promoting access to information and resources for at least one specific community. Talk about at least one tangible strategy that you, as an information professional, can use to help to break down barriers and promote more access to information and resources for the community you identify. Cite at least one scholarly source in your essay.

Kip Currier (c) 2020]

[Excerpt]

"The Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) honored the legacy of a trailblazing librarian—and celebrated its own 50th anniversary—at a live-streamed event at ALA Virtual June 26.

“E. J. Josey’s 1964 Charge: ‘Keep on Pushing’” charted the life of E. J. Josey (1924–2009), librarian, educator, author, activist, founding member of BCALA, and 1984–1985 American Library Association (ALA) president...

The session was moderated by Anthony Dunbar, librarian, sociology professor, and equity-diversity-inclusion consultant at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. He began by asking speaker Renate Chancellor—associate professor in the Department of Library and Information Science at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and author of E. J. Josey: Transformational Leader of the Modern Library Profession (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020)—to briefly encapsulate Josey before they moved into the breadth of his work.

“He was a transformative force and leader,” Chancellor said. “A lot of younger librarians may not be aware of his contributions to the profession.”...

1964 was a pivotal year for Josey, Black librarians, and civil rights, Chancellor said. At the 1964 ALA Annual Conference in St. Louis, Josey “did something extraordinary” by putting forth a resolution to prevent the Association from working with Southern state library chapters that refused membership to Black librarians. “All hell broke loose,” said Chancellor, quoting Josey, but the resolution passed.

“Josey was so passionate about equal rights and equality,” Chancellor said, describing how those issues drove much of his life’s work, from working with the student chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People while employed at Savannah (Ga.) State College; cofounding BCALA in 1970; and eventually becoming ALA president in 1983. One of Josey’s strengths, Chancellor said, was his ability to see the bigger picture."

Conservative Groups Want ‘Harmful’ LGBT Books Segregated at Iowa Library; Daily Beast, February 24, 2018

Tatyana Bellamy-Walker, Daily Beast; Conservative Groups Want ‘Harmful’ LGBT Books Segregated at Iowa Library

"Conservative groups in Iowa are demanding a library in Orange City shelve LGBTQ materials, including books and DVDs, separately to everything else, claiming they could "harm" children.

The groups equate the reading of such books to drug use and eating Tide pods."

Two Views On The Jim Crow South And Its Legacy Today; The Diane Rehm Show, 8/10/16

[Podcast] The Diane Rehm Show; Two Views On The Jim Crow South And Its Legacy Today:

"Historian Charles Dew was born in 1937 and grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. His parents, along with every white person he knew, believed without question in the inherent inferiority of black Americans and in the need for segregation. In a new memoir, “The Making of a Racist,” he describes what he learned as a child and how he gradually overthrew those beliefs. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson details the crushing realities of the Jim Crow South from the other side of the color line. In her 2010 book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” she documents the migration of black families in the 1930s, 40s and 50s in search of better lives in the North and in the West. Charles Dew and Isabel Wilkerson join us to talk about racism in American, then and now.

Guests

Charles B Dew professor of history, Williams College; author of "The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History and the Slave Trade"

Isabel Wilkerson Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; author, "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration"