Fantasy or history?

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views February 2, 2004]

Rayvon Fouché, an assistant professor at Troy, New York's Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, is catching up with Afrocentric fantasies. We learn from reporter Teresa Riordan in the New York Times (1/19/04) that Fouché was bothered some years ago when reading an article, in a black-owned newspaper, about Garrett Morgan, whom many blacks have been taught was the inventor of the traffic light. Certain claims in the article about Morgan's accomplishments did not ring true, so Fouché engaged in some research and discovered several inaccuracies and misinterpretations about Morgan's work.

The records show that Morgan was far from being the only person to take out a patent for a traffic regulating device, although you might never learn this fact, if you were a student in some classrooms. Fouché cautiously advises that a patent document in and of itself "does not convey any meaning about the significance of the patent or the person." As many blacks know well, Morgan is just one such figure whose achievements have been elevated beyond his genuine contributions.

Fouché set out to see what else he could learn about the work of black inventors, and his research has resulted in a book, Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation. He trained his sites especially on Shelby Davidson (1868-1930), Lewis Latimer (1848-1928) and Granville Woods (1856-1910), three men who, says Fouché, "are brought out every year during Black History Month as representative of black greatness and then reduced to their names, a patent number and some kind of artifact."

Riordan writes, "Though they were all important figures, Professor Fouché said that his goal was not to solidify their status as icons but, rather, to present them as three-dimensional human beings." Fouché is quoted as discreetly claiming, "We must rescue the complexity -- the greatness and imperfection -- of black inventors to understand more fully their relevance in America today." And he prudently concludes, "We have to create a new metric of what success is. We can still consider them as African-American heroes or champions. But it's most important that we develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of what their lives were like and what their relationships were to the larger world."

In straight talk, does this mean there's a need for an honest approach to black history and that it's time to drop the Afrocentric exaggeration and dissembling?

Copyright © 2008 Issues & Views