By Ashlyn Rochester, ACN Communications Specialist
In honor of Black History Month and injunction with our new DEI initiative, we are celebrating and sharing five Black innovators in agriculture.
Henry Blair
Blair (1807-1860) was an African American inventor who designed and patented corn and cotton planters. In 1834, he was the only second black man in the U.S. to receive a patent for his mechanical corn planter. The corn planter mimics a wheelbarrow with a chamber attached to the bottom to disperse the seeds. After they were distributed, the rakes attached to the back of the wheelbarrow covered the new seeds with soil. His cotton planter was patented in 1836. It’s similar to his corn planter but optimized for cotton. His inventions improved productivity in corn and cotton agriculture.
Frederick McKinley Jones
Jones (1893-1961) was a self-taught mechanical and electrical engineer who invented several important devices for agriculture, such as refrigerators and automobiles. His portable refrigeration unit helped the U.S. military carry food and blood during World War II. The company he founded during World War II with his inventions, U.S. Thermo Control, was worth millions by 1949. His talent for mechanics led him to build a needed transmitter for his local news radio station so they could broadcast. Over his career, he had over 60 patents. Most were related to his specialty, refrigeration technologies, and others in x-ray machines, engines, and sound equipment.
In 1944, he was the first African American elected to the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers. Thirty-some years later, he was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush posthumously awarded Jones and his company cofounder with the National Medical of Technology. He was the first African American to receive it, though he was not alive to receive it.
George Washington Carver
Carver is a familiar name to some because of his work as a soil scientist who pioneered crop rotation. In 1894, he was the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Science degree. As an agricultural scientist and inventor, he understood that soil has depleted nutrients after planting the same crop. But by adding nitrogen-fixing plants such as peanuts, potatoes, and soybeans, the crops restored the soil’s nutrients, and yield increased. But this left a surplus of peanuts and other non-cotton products, which led him to find alternative uses for these crops. His biggest success was peanuts, as he developed over 300 food, industrial, and commercial products from peanuts. The list includes milk, Worcestershire sauce, punches, cooking oils, salad oil, paper, cosmetics, soaps, and peanut-based medicines. This work gave him the nickname “The Peanut Man.”
Karen Washington
Washington (1956-) is a political activist, owner of Rise & Root Farm, and cofounder of Black Urban Growers. She’s been an activist and enthusiast for urban farming so locals have access to fresh foods. She has worked with the New York Botanical Gardens to transform empty lots in Bronx neighborhoods into community gardens. She has held many board positions on many farming grassroots organizations such as La Familia Verde Garden Coalition, Why Hunger, Farm School NYC, Greenworker Cooperatives, Soul Fire Farm, the Black Farmer Fund, and the Mary Mitchell Family & Youth Center. She has received many awards for her work.
Booker T. Whatley
Whatley (1915 – 2005) pursued a degree in agricultural studies at Alabama A&M University, where he used the knowledge he gained to serve in the Korean War to operate a 55-acre hydroponic farm to provide food for troops. After returning, he studied at Tuskegee University for his horticulture doctorate and became a professor. His passion for regenerative agriculture and small farms has become fundamental to small farms today. He’s known for being responsible for creating Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). He originally called them “clientele membership clubs.” Did you know he was named after Booker T. Washington and that he, George Washington Carver, and Whatley all attended Tuskegee University? – Rochester is the Communications Specialist for ACN