Unheralded but Unbowed: Black Scientists & Engineers who Changed the World - Paperback

by Garland L. Thompson (Author)

Unheralded but Unbowed traces the history of African Americans in what we now call the "Knowledge Enterprise." But it also endeavors to "connect the dots" between the poorly understood work of Black scientists and engineers and the broad sweep of Black History, in which they are at once the products of the decades-long struggle of African Americans for an equal place at the table of America's benefits and actors playing critical roles in many of the advances. Centered around the stories of the high achievers recognized at the annual Black Engineer of the Year Awzards, the book closely examines the historical developments that brought them to this level of eminence, as it strives to illustrate for new generations the true import of their careers and accomplishments.

Author Biography

Garland L. Thompson has covered science and technology extensively for more than a generation. Beginning his own career in technology as a Vietnam War-era Navy technician and working in the telecommunications industry afterward, Thompson realized the technologies he was seeing were about to radically alter the way business was done in this country, and decided to become a journalist. A 1975 graduate of Temple University's School of Communications & Theater and a 1983 graduate of the Beasley School of Law, Thompson brings multiple skills to bear in his approach to news coverage. In addition to working for the Philadelphia Inquirerand the Baltimore Sun, Thompson has edited the two oldest Black publications still printing: The Phhiladelphia Tribune, the oldest newsweekly, and The Crisis, founded by W.E.B. DuBois. Thompson also has completed several stints as a college professor, including serving as Freedom Forum Professional-in Residence at the University of Kansas and as Phillip Morris Visiting Professor of Business Journalism at Bernard M. Baruch College. For the last quarter of a century, Thompson also has sat as a member of the Selection Panel for the annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards, presented each February by Baltimore-based Career Communications Group, publishers of US Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine.