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Speaker 1: The man who invented color TV didn't even own one.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back Know It alls to another episode of the most

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Speaker 1: anticipated podcast on the Black Effect podcast Network, especially in February,

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Speaker 1: entitled I didn't know Maybe you didn't either. I'm your

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Speaker 1: host b dot and my cash app is b dot TV.

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Speaker 1: If anybody's feeling generous to kick off today's episode, we

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Speaker 1: will start, as we always do, with three of the

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Speaker 1: most useless facts you'll never need, never, not a day

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Speaker 1: in life. Your first useless fact, color televisions. They didn't

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Speaker 1: become widespread until the nineteen sixties, a full decade after

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Speaker 1: the technology existed. Your second useless fact, the core technology

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Speaker 1: that made color TV stable and affordable, was invented decades earlier.

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Speaker 1: And your third useless fact, the black man who helped

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Speaker 1: make it possible couldn't even afford a color television himself.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of color televisions, we just moved our son to

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Speaker 1: his honors dorm because he finished his first semester with

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Speaker 1: a three point seven eight gpa. And you would think

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Speaker 1: with a GPA that high that he would be smart.

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Speaker 1: At least I did, until after unloading his car, we

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Speaker 1: realized that he had laid his flat screen television in

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Speaker 1: the bottom of his trunk, and then packed his drawers

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Speaker 1: and shoes and clothes and snacks on top of the

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Speaker 1: television in the trunk. And of course we had to

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Speaker 1: go over three huge speed bumps to get to the

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Speaker 1: Honors Dorm. Marl of the story is, Isaiah needs a

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Speaker 1: new television. But my question to you is do you

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Speaker 1: know who made color TVs possible? Because I didn't. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about color television. So when we think about it,

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Speaker 1: we think about family rooms, super bowls, sitcoms, cartoons, culture.

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Speaker 1: What we don't think about is the man who made

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Speaker 1: it possible. Otis Frank Boykin. Otis Boykin. He was an

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Speaker 1: electrical engineer and an inventor who's work on electrical resistors

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Speaker 1: and signal control devices made television signals, especially color signals, stable, affordable,

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Speaker 1: and reliable. Now let me break it down to you

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Speaker 1: like a five year old. Before Boykin's improvements, televisions was

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Speaker 1: od expensive. Only the rich people had them. They were unstable,

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Speaker 1: The signals was jumping all over the place, and of

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Speaker 1: course they were overheat I mean legit fire hazards in

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Speaker 1: your living room. It was inconsistent in signal quality. Watching

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Speaker 1: one of your favorite shows was like watching through a migraine.

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Speaker 1: Color TV wasn't just about adding color. It needed precise

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Speaker 1: control of electrical currents. You couldn't just paint the signal

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Speaker 1: rainbow and call it a day. Boykin invented a wire

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Speaker 1: precision resistant that improved signal clarity. I reduced interference, It

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Speaker 1: lowered production costs, and the best part, it didn't catch

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Speaker 1: your damn house on fire. And the last one was

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Speaker 1: very important. But the components he designed wasn't just for televisions.

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Speaker 1: It was for radios, computers, pacemakers, yeah, the thing to

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Speaker 1: keep your heart beating, and military missile god and systems.

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Speaker 1: This man's work is keeping mem alive and protecting the country.

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Speaker 1: How we never knew his name. Now here's the part

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Speaker 1: that makes the episode hurt a little. Despite holding twenty

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Speaker 1: six patents and revolutionizing consumer electronics, Oh, this boy can

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Speaker 1: never own the color TV. Not because he didn't believe

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Speaker 1: in it, not because he didn't want one, but because

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Speaker 1: the wealth that was generated from his inventions. He didn't

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Speaker 1: see none of that money. His designs was licensed, his

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Speaker 1: components were mass produced. Companies got rich rich. He got

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Speaker 1: recognition late, and not nearly enough compensation. See this is

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Speaker 1: the other side of innovation in America. Black inventors build

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Speaker 1: a future, but don't always get to live comfortable. And

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Speaker 1: Cardigie Woodson warned us about this one hundred years ago.

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Speaker 1: If you don't document who built what, somebody else will

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Speaker 1: claim it. If you don't control the narrative, someone else

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Speaker 1: will rewrite it. And if you don't own the means

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Speaker 1: of production, you just produce something for someone else's means.

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Speaker 1: So every time you watch a color screen, whether it's

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Speaker 1: your TV, your phone, your tablet, that laptop you're pretending

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Speaker 1: to work on right now, remember a black man helped

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Speaker 1: make that possible, even if he never got to sit

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Speaker 1: back and enjoy it himself. And I didn't know, maybe

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Speaker 1: you didn't either. I