This Week In Black History June 26 – July 2, 2024

JUNE 26 1899—Black inventor William H. Richardson redesigns the baby car­riage. While the idea for the baby car­riage is nearly 300 years old, Richard­son’s patent, filed at the Boston patent office, included several new features including a special joint which allowed the bassinet to be turned to face the mother or whoever was pushing the carriage. Many of Richardson’s designs are still in use today. [There is some authority that Richardson’s patent was actually filed on June 18.] 1942—Harvard medical student, Ber­nard W. Robinson, becomes the first African American to win a commission to the United States Navy. JUNE 27 1872—Paul Lawrence Dunbar, one of the most popular poets in Black American history, is born in Dayton, Ohio. Dunbar first gained national recognition with a collection of works published in 1896 entitled “Lyrics of a Lowly Life,” which included “Ode to Ethiopia.” Despite the power of his poetry, Dunbar angered some Blacks who were concerned about “what will White people think” because he generally used Black dialect and not Standard English in much of his poet­ry. Dunbar’s first poem was published in a newspaper owned by high school friends and American airplane pio­neers Orville and Wilbur Wright. The Wright brothers...