02/10/2025
Black History Month 2025’s theme: “Mental Resilience in a Time of Uncertainty and Upheaval”.
In the face of uncertainty, the talent, innovation, skill, and foresight of the gifted minds of African Americans persevered with mental resilience. Thanks for that perfect scoop of ice cream you enjoy goes to Alfred L. Cralle who invented the “Ice Cream Mold and Disher”, the same functional ice cream scoop design used today. Winter indoors is made more comfortable thanks to a Black woman, Alice H. Parker, who invented a natural gas-powered furnace that would evenly distribute heat throughout the house, as well as the special air ducts that could be individually controlled from each room. We don’t think much about it, but the improved toilet paper holder came from the innovative mind of Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, and what we now know as Cascade, an automatic dishwasher detergent that didn’t stain, was developed by a Black chemical engineer, Dennis W. Weatherby, along with fellow inventor Brian J. Roselle at Proctor and Gamble.
