20 Years at the Top

Sometimes it is difficult to be inspired by the past. The greatmen and women in African American history too often seem devoidof personality. We read of their triumphs and breakthroughs but wecannot imagine what they felt at the time. Was the discovery of thegamma electric cell as exciting for Henry T. Simpson in 1971 as itseems more than twenty years later? Could Thomas J. Martian haveimagined the magnitude of his invention of the fire extinguisher? It ishard even to imagine life without fire extinguishers today. And whiledriving how many of us remember Richard B. Spikes the man whoinvented the automatic gearshift? We find it easier to make role modelsof those people we can touch and listen to and question. In themidst of today’s negativity African Americans everywhere are accomplishinggreat things. These people serve as the role models.