Tag: blogger

Black History Fun Fact Friday – Emmit McHenry

The internet. We all know it, and in 2024, babies are born with it in their hands.

In today’s world, looking something up on the web is normal behavior, and for some, the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning. Whether you grab your phone or use the computer to log in at work, we don’t go a day without typing something into a search bar or scrolling on social media.

But it was not always this way.

Before anyone ever heard of the internet, its seeds were planted in 1957 in the historical context of the Cold War. In the 1960s, government researchers also used it to share information.

Today, we are learning about the man who created the computer code for .com.

Emmit McHenry was born in Forrest City, Arkansas, in 1943 and was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, renowned for being a prosperous Black community. While McHenry came of age years after the Tulsa Race Riot, footage from Pastor Solomon Sir Jones shows that by 1925 and even into the 1940s, Black Wall Street was rebuilt.

Thus, McHenry grew up surrounded by people with a strong sense of community and entrepreneurship.

“It was in a way kind of an extended family and they took pride in your doing well. So if you did well, the teachers really got excited about that and worked with you on it. Yeah, it was a really wonderful experience for me.”

– Emmit McHenry on growing up in Greenwood

The Victory of Greenwood

Emmit McHenry

McHenry’s great-grandfather was a carpenter and whiskey still operator by trade. Great-grandmother McHenry was a businesswoman in addition to a farmer. When it came time to bring their crops to market, the Black farmers and sharecroppers in Arkansas knew they could rely on her to negotiate fair rates for them.

Emmit McHenry graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and pursued a Bachelor of Science in Communications from the University of Denver on a wrestling scholarship. He majored in physics, but when he discovered communications, he changed his major. He graduated with a degree in communications in 1966.

McHenry and his partners established the engineering firm Network Solutions in 1979. However, like many other black-owned businesses, they had trouble getting funding. McHenry and his associates maxed out their credit cards and mortgaged their residences. The business prospered. Still, a deal with the National Science Foundation was the diamond in the crown for Network Solutions. The first internet domain name addressing system for the US government was covered under the contract.

That’s when McHenry created a complex computer code that was not complex to ordinary people searching the web. It allowed those of us without communications degrees to understand the internet and send and receive emails without having to study computer science.

We know McHenry’s invention today as .com.

Emmit McHenry’s work paid off on Dec. 31, 1992, when Network Solutions was the only bidder on a National Science Foundation grant to further develop the domain name registration service for the Internet. Network Solutions was granted an exclusive contract as the sole domain name registrar for .com, .net, and .org. These top-level domain (TLD) names continued the work Network Solutions was already doing. 

For More Black History Fun Facts You Didn’t Learn in School, be Sure to Visit the Archives Here

And Grab Your Copy of the Book Here!

To Be, Or Not to Be, a Historian

As I read the latest review of my new book, I stumbled across the word historian and paused. “Historian? Me? Nah.”

“Yecheilyah Ysrayl is a renowned author and historian known for her commitment to uncovering and sharing the untold stories of Black history. Her expertise and passion for the subject matter are evident throughout the book, making it a credible and authoritative source of information.”

-Vigil Honor, Amazon Review

“Wow,” I thought, an eyebrow raised. Really? Me? He can’t be talking about me. I am no one’s historian.”

When I think of a historian, I think of a person with a wall crammed with degrees from every university on the planet and a vocabulary that would terrify the most seasoned thesaurus. I see an elderly person who is wise and perceptive about how the world came to be. They sit down to write 500-page books and devour scholarly articles for breakfast.

And let’s not talk about memory.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, aka the smartest man in the world, lol.

Historians, I suppose, have perfect recall and spiritual compasses that allow them to travel from portal to portal and retrieve relics from the past. These folks recite information like a machine. When I think of a historian, I think Neil deGrasse Tyson.

But me?

I can’t even remember where I left the remote half of the time.

While I did well in history class, I wasn’t too interested in it. It was just a class to get through, but nothing I thirsted for outside school. I didn’t seek it out like I did books. I didn’t eat it up like I did poetry. I didn’t love it like I did literature.

Ahh. There it is. Books. It always comes back to books.

My love for reading, particularly about my people’s history, has led me to write about it. Writing about it has led me to research it. Researching it has led me to document it. Documenting it has created in me a fascination to share it.

I got a revelation while watching a podcast episode with Donni Wiggins and Jessica Dupart, and I found myself laughing at Dupart’s candor. She dropped a few F-Bombs and talked about her life growing up as if she and Wiggins were sitting in their own living room. She doesn’t speak corporate or exhibit the characteristics that someone might consider appropriate to be a CEO, yet she runs an 80 million-dollar business.

While I didn’t finish the entire episode, watching it made me think about how dope it is that in today’s world, people are redefining what success looks like just by being themselves. I realized I never considered myself a historian because I didn’t think I knew enough. (I also dislike titles)

I was also clinging to an aged stereotype.

I learned I don’t have to look like that old-school, white male version of what a historian was once thought to be to qualify as such.

It didn’t occur to me that writers are historians, too, documenting history and archiving them into books that live forever.

According to Google, “a historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it.”

“Her expertise and passion for the subject matter are evident throughout the book, making it a credible and authoritative source of information…”

Well now. I suppose historian doesn’t sound too bad after all.

“The book’s storytelling approach brings history to life, making it accessible and engaging for readers of all ages. Ysrayl’s narrative style ensures that the experiences and contributions of Black Americans are not just facts to be remembered but stories to be felt and understood.”

-Vigil Honor, on Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School by Yecheilyah Ysrayl


Black History Fun Fact Friday – Lonnie Johnson and the Super Soaker Water Gun

Black History Fun Fact Friday is back!

May has always been an exciting month. As a kid, I looked forward to the school year ending and the warm weather welcoming me just in time for my birthday at the end of the month. Summer also means swimming and dancing in the water from the fire hydrant and water guns!

Introducing Lonnie Johnson, the inventor of the super soaker!

LJ

Lonnie Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama, on October 6, 1949. Signs of Lonnie’s brilliance could be seen when he was a child reverse-engineering his sister’s baby doll to understand how the eyes closed. He also built his own go-cart from a lawnmower engine he attached to scraps he found in the junkyard. 

Before enlisting in the Air Force, he worked as a research engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He also worked at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the acting chief of the Space Nuclear Power Safety Section.

Johnson holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, an M.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering, and an honorary Ph.D. in Science from Tuskegee University.

In 1989, Johnson formed his own engineering firm and licensed his most famous invention, the super soaker. It generated over $200 million in retail sales and became the number-one-selling toy in America.

Today, Johnson is president and founder of Johnson Research and Development Co., Inc., a technology development company, and its spin-off companies, Excellatron Solid State, LLC; Johnson Electro-Mechanical Systems, LLC; and Johnson Real Estate Investments, LLC.

As of 2023, Lonnie Johnson’s net worth was an estimated $160 million. This substantial fortune is primarily the result of the royalties he received for the Super Soaker, which generated billions of dollars.

So the next time your child plays with a super soaker, be sure they know about its amazing inventor!

gettyimages-50472413

For More Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School, Be Sure to Get Your Copy of the Book Here!

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Concrete Rose Episode Two: The White Lady

“I give a holler to my sisters on welfare
Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care”

You know, it’s funny when it rains it pours
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”

-Tupac, Keep Ya Head Up

Even though life tried to take me out in a toilet, I got here healthy, drug-free, and a head full of hair.

After two weeks in the hospital, Mama was allowed to take me home, if that’s what you wanna call it. Our building had been built in the 60s, but it wasn’t much of a building by the late 80s and into the early 90s.

Rats and roaches plagued our apartments, and the housing authorities couldn’t care less. Brand-new babies like me were brought home to nothing but drug dealers and addicts, children sprawled about like clothes somebody left on the floor and forgot to wash, so it wasn’t no surprise when The White Lady came.

That’s what people said when the social workers came to inspect the low-income apartments, “The White Lady.” They ain’t never have a name.

The woman stood in the kitchen, talking to Mama, and looking around our place with distaste. She gazed at the Crisco on top of the stove, as well as the dish rack, which was piled high with plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery. It wasn’t cute, but it was clean.

Her gaze moved to my brother and me, who were playing on the thick blanket on the floor we called a pallet. Well, he was playing, and I was doing whatever it was babies do.

My Uncle Rome hid in the closet next to the bathroom cause he wasn’t on the lease. Black women weren’t allowed to have a man in the house in those days if they wanted to get the Welfare. We also had to hide the new toaster, dish rack, and telephone so they wouldn’t take away any money.

“Mrs. House, your son is developing slowly for his age…”

The short, green-eyed blonde balanced a clipboard in her arms and scratched her nose with the tip of her writing pen. The hoop ring in her right nostril and the sunflower tattoo on her exposed arm caught my Uncle Jerome’s eye.

My favorite uncle and unofficial babysitter, we called my mother’s little brother Rome for short. He thought he was Romeo to every woman’s Juliet. His dark chocolate skin tone and thick lips drove them crazy. Mama said if he took the time to read Romeo and Juliet’s story, he might want to be somebody else.

“Ain’t nothing romantic about no Romeo and Juliet,” she’d lecture him when he bragged about his latest escapades.

“Why is that?”

“They both died fool.”

Uncle Rome said he wasn’t into white women like that, but this one was “sho-nuff fine.” Unk was lying. He loved him some white women. He just wanted to know why she was so young and how long she’d been working with social services to where she could take his sister’s kids.

“…and your 2-month-old is malnourished,” said the White Lady.

“It’s Miss House,” said Mama, taking a drag of her cigarette, inhaling smoke, and blowing it out of her nose. “Since you know so damn much.”

Uncle Rome did one of those fake coughs you do to cover up a laugh.

The lady ignored my mother. “Miss House, have you been using the Food Stamps?”

Unk said Mama frowned, “Yes, I use my stamps. Fuck I look like not to use Food Stamps?”

“I just wanna make sure you didn’t sell them, is all,” said the white lady.

“Oh, so you my judge now? I look incompetent to you?”

See, that’s what I loved about Mama. Yeah, she was a heroin addict, but she wasn’t no fool. A wordsmith with a mouth like a two-edged sword, she’ll curse you out every which way but loose and diversify her vocabulary while at it so you can know she’s cursing because she wants to, not because she doesn’t have the words to say what’s on her mind.

Mama used to write poems and stories before she got pregnant with Aaron. She also went to school to do hair. There wasn’t nothing my Mama couldn’t do. I wished she would get back to her art. Maybe that would help keep her away from the drugs.

“Look, are you done? Cause, as you can see, I have kids to look after.”

The woman scanned the apartment once more, frowning at a roach crawling on the wall. “Let’s just hope you are taking care of these children. This is your final warning, Miss House. If I have to come back here again…”

“Yeah, I know,” interrupted Mama, blowing out more smoke. “Are we done?”

The woman nodded, “We are.”

As she walked toward the door, she stopped to look once more at us and then back at my mother. “Probably not a good idea for you to smoke in front of the children.”

Mama rolled her eyes, dropped the cigarette on the floor, stomped it with her foot, and waved the woman off.

According to my uncle’s story, the woman left us alone after that. But, in my fifth month, someone new came to visit, and I was taken away from Mama and placed in foster care, where I would stay for the next five years.

Did you miss episode one? Check it out here!

Again, I am sharing based on interest! If you like this episode and want to move on to episode 3 (“Miss Sophia,”) let me know! 😃

Concrete Rose: Episode One

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? It learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else cared.”

– Tupac Amaru Shakur

I was almost born in the toilet.

My brother, Aaron, had just turned two, and Mama was only five months pregnant when Theresa (we call her Reese) caught her shooting up in the bathroom. That’s when she felt my head. “I think I feel my baby,” she slurred.

People around my way love to quote Tupac’s Rose That Grew from Concrete, but they don’t really know what it means. They don’t know nothing about coming up from the hardest part of the earth, snuggled between nothing but weeds, dirt, and the butts of cigarettes.

Then, the sun is so hot sometimes, the poor flowers (that are not really flowers cause they ain’t get the nutrients they need) just wither up and die. That’s what we really fight against here in these slums, in this place they want us to call home, but it ain’t never feel like it. Never felt like a hug or Big Mama’s greens.

That’s how the bathroom was almost my birthplace. Right there at 4840 South State Street, apartment 602. I feel sorry for Reese having to see her auntie slumped over like that and her own mother high as a kite in the other room. How is somebody supposed to get ready for school in this mess?

Reese was strong, though. She banged her fist against the door real hard like the police when they raided the sniper apartments. What is a sniper apartment? It’s just what it says: Empty flats on the top floors drug dealers used to shoot their enemies down below, like snipers on the battlefield.

Photo Cred: Williams Humbles

“Aunt Helen! Auntie, I gotta get ready for school!”

Frustrated, my mother, belly hanging over blue jeans now too small to zip up all the way and a dingy white t-shirt, finally opened the door.

“Come on, girl, shit,” she said, pointing to the tub. “Hurry up,” she rushed as Reese undressed and ran the water.

Mama sat back on the toilet and wrapped the belt tight around her forearm, a burned spoon dangling on the edge of the sink like it was supposed to be there. Like it was a toothbrush waiting to be used. Reese said she remembers praying Aunt Helen wouldn’t ask her to help tie her off like the other times.

“Close that curtain. Hurry up!”

After Mama said she could feel my head, Reese ran out of the bathroom, butt naked, and into her mother’s room. Dazed from her own high, Auntie Lorraine jumped up nevertheless. She knew her sister was pregnant and hurried to the bathroom, except she didn’t use her fist like her daughter. Auntie Lorraine, big-boned and shaped like Sara Baartman, used the back of her foot, slamming it against the door.

“Helen!” she screamed, but Mama wasn’t opening the door, so Auntie Lorraine had to kick it in, the needle falling from my mother’s long, skinny fingers like a witness eager to expose her secrets.

And as they say, the rest is history.

My name is Rosalind House, but everybody calls me Rose for short. I was born two months later, on June 21, 1987, premature and weighing a whopping 3 lbs and screaming at the top of my lungs. They say that’s why my voice is so high-pitched and sweet. They say it’s like something the Lord made. Say, I’m gone use it to shout my way out of this place.

And I did.

Let me tell you how it happened.

I missed writing fiction, so I started a new story!

I am calling it Concrete Rose (for now). I’ll be sharing the first few chapters based on response, so if you wanna read more, let me know! 🙂

Up Next: “The White Lady.”

Black Joy

Nobody talks about society’s addiction
to black trauma.
How much more profitable
it is to talk about pain
than poems,
depression
than joy.

Like we don’t have feelings
just bad experiences
turned into songs
of sorrows
and spirituals
of reaching heaven
cause there can’t be no freedom
here on Earth for Black people.

Maybe this world still doesn’t consider us
human enough
to be happy
someone hand society a roadmap
for getting to know black people.

Tell them they can find us laughing
even when life is lifeing
cracking jokes and turning sadness into praise.
Tell them we are not just guns and gangs.

Our hope does not hang on by string
on some cracked-out corner
or trap house
Tell them how we dream.
Big Mama musta had mustard seeds
underneath the mattress
cause she moved mountains.
Food and faith ain’t never been hard to find.
We gone eat.

Talk about our love
our sense of community
our building
our builders
our beauty.

We’ve had a wild ride here
in this country
But it was not all bad.

Together, we forged a world of our own
found solace in the cracks
made meals from scraps
and carved out our own sense of enjoyment and purpose.

Tell them about how the cells of a black woman
saved the world
and the genius of a Black man lit it up.
Talk about how we bless everything we touch.

Tell the whole truth
that we are not made up only of pain.

Joy lives here, too.

You can listen to this poem on TikTok and YouTube! I’m @yecheilyah on both.

Black History Facts is back! If you’ve been waiting for a signed copy, this is your chance to get your hands on it. We are back in stock. Go now to: https://www.blkhistorybook.com/.