Unheralded but Unbowed: Black Scientists & Engineers who Changed the World by Garland L. Thompson traces the history of blacks in innovation and scientific achievement, which reveals a long line of accomplishments he feels are too often overlooked.
The book aims to gather the seemingly disparate threads of black progress in science and technology and the ongoing fight for equal rights and equality of opportunity in American society into a single, coherent story. It chronicles the growth in access to technology careers for blacks against the backdrop of the larger struggles against discrimination through the 20th century to the present day.
Throughout, Thompson argues for better recognition of the capabilities of people from all underserved communities, the repositories of the biggest numbers of unemployed and disadvantaged youth in American society.
"Talent knows no color line," Thompson says. "The book underscores how America needs all the new, capable hands it can find in the burgeoning competition of a multi-polar world economy."
Informed by Thompson's experience as a judge of candidate entries for the annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards, the book offers a series of biographical accounts that portray black achievement. The selected profiles include Blue Angels pilot Donnie Cochran, NASA astronaut Guy Bluford, business executives Linda Gooden and Rod Adkins, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president Dr. Shirley Jackson, as well as many other high achievers in the engineering, science and technology fields who are not as prominent in the public eye.
Unheralded but Unbowed: Black Scientists & Engineers who Changed the World is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels. A Kindle version is also available.
About the Author
Garland L. Thompson is a journalist, author and educator. A former navy technician and telecommunications professional, he is a 1975 graduate of Temple University's School of Communications and Theatre and a 1983 graduate of the Beasley School of Law.
Over the course of his career in journalism, Thompson has worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Baltimore Sun and edited the two oldest black publications in continuous print: The Philadelphia Tribune, the oldest news weekly, 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 Philip Morris visiting professor of business journalism at Bernard M. Baruch College.
