High Tech's Invisible Man and other Black History heroes

High Tech's Invisible Man and other Black History heroes
By Rodolpho Carrasco
February 29, 2004 in the Pasadena Star News

Rodolpho Carrasco is executive director of the Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena and a member of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame. Email him at rudy at harambee dot org.

Last month, I was in Atlanta on the day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. 36 years after his assassination, the entire city belonged to him. His voice and image were everywhere, in a way I've never seen in Southern California.

I found it unusual, but welcome. We need things like the King holiday, and Black history month, to remind us where we were, show us how far we've come, and how much there remains to do.

Looking back on that day, I'm surprised that I did not learn a single new thing about Black history or King. Everything I heard, I knew already.

I had time-stopping moments. I drove down Lookout Mountain at the exact moment the radio played the part in the I Have A Dream speech where King says, "Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain in Georgia" -- but no new data.

There are many efforts to teach, write about, film, and present Black history and its many niches, so let me be the first to claim my own human error as reason for why I did not learn anything new.

What the experience stirred afresh in me, however, was the desire to broadcast the untold and under-reported stories of Black history.

Two of my favorites involve Mark Dean and Tony Gleaton.

Surfing the web in January, I came across an article in Black Engineer magazine titled, "High-tech’s invisible man." The second paragraph says it all:

"Dr. Mark Dean is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American."

The story goes on to say that though the computer was created by an English mathematician named Alan Turing, everything changed when a team led by Dr. Dean developed interior architecture that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers. Because of Dr. Dean's team, PCs have now become a part of our everyday lives.

Since the mid-1990s, photographer Tony Gleaton has been someone I've wanted to meet. I first came across his photographs at the California African American museum in Los Angeles. His exhibit focused on the African presence in Mexico. The subject was of great interest to our staff at Harambee Center, as we work to forge strong community links between African Americans and Latinos. We took a group of kids to see the exhibit.

All of us were fascinated by the images of Afro-Mexicans who live primarily in southern Mexico. They arrived in Mexico during the slave trade. According to writer Colin A. Powell, "Over the approximately three hundred years it lasted, the slave trade brought about 200,000 Africans to the colony. Not until 1829 was the institution abolished by the leaders of the newly independent nation."

Besides the Deans and Gleatons of the world, I yearn for more positive stories about young African Americans. I know young blacks who have trouble believing they can rise above the life of the streets. They need reinforcement. They need to know about people like Amen Mashariki.

Amen has five patents pending related to his computer engineering work at Motorola. He's currently a Ph.D. student in computer science at Morgan State University, a historically black college. He's not yet thirty years old.

Then there is the young black male I know, not yet 25, who has saved the money necessary for a down payment on a house in the Inland Empire.

This young man chose to go straight to full-time work rather than go to college. As the older sibling in a family with many children and no father or mother, he wants to be a stable rock for his brothers and sisters.

Quietly, every day, he works long hours, saves his money, and prepares himself to anchor the family.

His story is not sexy and is unheralded. Yet it is critical to the health of young Black America, which needs role models like this young man. More, please.

The copyright for these materials are owned by Rudy Carrasco.  These materials were used with permission by TechMission