Frederick Douglass: Brother Taborn, I salute your campaign in the age of machines. Yet I question—do we risk confusing advancement of tools with advancement of souls? For it is not in steel nor circuits that dignity lies, but in justice, education, and will.
Ty Taborn: With deep respect, Brother Douglass, the very will you speak of is why we must seize this age of technology. You wielded the pen to unchain minds. But today, data is the pen—and if we don’t control it, we’ll be written out of history. STEM is not optional. It’s survival.
Douglass: (smiling) You argue well. But let me share a lesser-known tale. After the war, I invested in the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company in Baltimore. I understood that control of sea technology—of ship repair and transport—meant economic empowerment for free Black men. It was not just moral elevation I sought, but economic infrastructure.
Ty: Exactly! You were building Black maritime capacity in a time when we weren’t even allowed to vote in some states. That's engineering. That's logistics. That’s STEM economics before the acronym even existed. You weren’t just escaping slavery—you were mastering systems.
Douglass: Indeed. I saw the shipyard as our own industrial revolution. We hired Black workers, trained them in carpentry and metalwork. We proved that we could not only sail ships but own and repair them. Ownership is as much a freedom as speech.
Ty: And today, the new “ships” are digital. Cloud infrastructure. AI platforms. Blockchain ecosystems. If we don't own the code, we become cargo again—transported and traded by invisible forces we didn't build. My work with BEYA, STEM City USA, and Collin AI is about reversing that.
Douglass: Then you understand the soul of liberation. It is not merely emancipation—it is capacity. Tools in the hands of free minds. A newspaper in my time. A neural network in yours.
Ty: And we stand on your precedent. What you did at the shipyard mirrors what we’re doing now in cybersecurity, aerospace, health tech. You showed that Black people can and must build the future’s platforms—not just be passengers.
Douglass: Then let us agree—technology must serve justice. It must be guided by conscience. And it must be accessible to the least among us, not hoarded by the few.
Ty: Absolutely. And that’s why I say, technology is civil rights. Broadband. Access to STEM education. Representation in AI. If we fail to own these domains, we jeopardize everything we’ve gained.
Douglass: Then march on, brother. But take care: the same furnace that forges the blade can also build the plow. Let us teach our people not only to innovate, but to humanize innovation.
Every Collin AI Interview is guided by contextual integrity, meaning that what is said aligns with how the featured individual has spoken or acted in real life. These are learning tools, not substitutes for the original source materials, which are always credited and preserved.