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Speaker 1: The man who made the lights stay on. We'll come

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Speaker 1: back know at all.

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Speaker 2: To another episode of the most anticipated podcast where on

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Speaker 2: the Black Effect Podcast Network, entitled.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know, maybe you didn't either. Who is you?

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Speaker 2: I'm your host b dot and I hope you're sharing

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Speaker 2: this content because myself, along with the team, put a

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Speaker 2: lot of work in making sure we came up with

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Speaker 2: fresh ideas.

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Speaker 1: This February, we're to talk.

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Speaker 2: About people they don't normally talk about during Black History Month.

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Speaker 2: You know, they give us the same old civil rights

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Speaker 2: stories every year, where Rosa Parks wouldn't sit on the

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Speaker 2: back of the bus, and Martin Luther King he had

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Speaker 2: a dream. And if you like Peanut Butter, you should

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Speaker 2: thank George Washington Carver because he helped with the Peanuts Man.

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Speaker 2: This season is to introduce new Black history heroes and

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Speaker 2: some of the names, even if you've heard them, We've

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Speaker 2: dug even deeper into folks to give you even more

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Speaker 2: things that I didn't know maybe you didn't either about them.

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Speaker 2: Like episode one, I knew Carter G. Woodson invented Black

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Speaker 2: History Week February of nineteen twenty six, but I didn't

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Speaker 2: know he was a coal miner, before that, I didn't

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Speaker 2: know he started high school at twenty years old. This

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Speaker 2: season is for you to share episodes and be a

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Speaker 2: light to someone else. And speaking of lights, when you

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Speaker 2: walk in your house and flip that switch and them

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Speaker 2: house lights come on, who you think made that possible? Now,

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Speaker 2: usually most people just say one name. Wait for it,

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Speaker 2: They all say Tony, And that's the problem. But before

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Speaker 2: we jump into that, it is customary that we give

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Speaker 2: you three of the most useless facts you'll never need ever,

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Speaker 2: not a day in life.

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Speaker 1: Up first, early.

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Speaker 2: Electric bulbs existed, but they burned out hell or fast,

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Speaker 2: and they cost way too much to replace them. Your

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Speaker 2: second useless fact, it was a black engineer to fix

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Speaker 2: that problem. Not only did he make electric light practical,

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Speaker 2: but he made it affordable. And your third useless fact,

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Speaker 2: Las Vegas at nights, Nashville, Tennessee at night, Yo City

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Speaker 2: at night does not work without the contribution of Lewis Latimer.

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Speaker 1: Let's meet him. I didn't know. I didn't know. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know, all right,

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Speaker 2: So let me tell you where history gets lazy. Yes,

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Speaker 2: Thomas Edison helped bring electric lighting to market. That part

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Speaker 2: is true, But Thomas Edison's early light bulbs was flawed

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Speaker 2: as ever.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they worked, but they ain't last.

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Speaker 2: You know that little wiggly thing inside the light bulb

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Speaker 2: that called a filament, and his filaments were super fragile.

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Speaker 2: They burned out helicuick and it was way too expensive

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Speaker 2: to be using every day. So elect light state a novelty,

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Speaker 2: not an infrastructure. It was like having a may box

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Speaker 2: you can only drive on Mondays. And that's when that

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Speaker 2: brother Lewis Latimer changed the game. See, he improved that

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Speaker 2: carbon filament inside the bull, that little squiggly thing. He

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Speaker 2: made it stronger, it lasted longer, it was cheaper to

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Speaker 2: produce it. Like Lewis Latimer didn't tweak the light bulb,

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Speaker 2: he invented the process that they could mass produce the

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Speaker 2: carbon filaments. The patent numbers two five, two, three eighty

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Speaker 2: six got filed in January of eighteen eighty two. Look,

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Speaker 2: without that patent, every light bulb would have been handmade.

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Speaker 2: Fin't nobody afford that handmade light bulbs? It sounds technical,

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Speaker 2: but the impact was massive. Canw street lights stay on?

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Speaker 2: Hospitals could operate at night factories could run longer shifts.

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Speaker 2: New York could be the city that never sleeps. Lewis

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Speaker 2: Latimer didn't just improve a bulb. Lewis Latimer made night

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Speaker 2: life possible. Here's something else that I didn't know. Maybe

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Speaker 2: you didn't either. He also wrote the first technical manual

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Speaker 2: on electric light. He was training engineers who spread the

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Speaker 2: system across the country. The book was called Incandescent Electric Lighting,

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Speaker 2: A Practical Description of the Edison System. It was published

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Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety. It literally taught America how electricity worked.

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Speaker 1: And here's the quiet irony.

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Speaker 2: Lewis Latimer was one of the only black members of

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Speaker 2: the Edison Pioneers, and the Edison Pioneers was an elite

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Speaker 2: group that was shaping America's electrical future, one of the

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Speaker 2: only But you know history history, love of Solo Jena story.

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Speaker 2: So Thomas Edison he became the headline, and Lewis Latimer

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Speaker 2: he became the footnote. Even though his work is still

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Speaker 2: lighting our streets today. Ain't it always interesting how inventions

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Speaker 2: get remembered but the infrastructure gets erased.

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Speaker 1: A century ago. Carter G.

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Speaker 2: Woodson, who graduated high school and just two years after

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Speaker 2: starting at the age of twenty. He warned us the

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Speaker 2: Black contributions were power the world, while our names would

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Speaker 2: disappear from the Rector. From the Rectord. Lewis Latimer proves

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Speaker 2: his point perfectly. The light stayed on. The credit didn't

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Speaker 2: hidden in plain sights, and I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't either. I