Black Inventor Spotlight: Benjamin Banneker

For Black History Month, we here at Blerdimension want to highlight and give flowers to people who have contributed to the Black community and society who have been brushed over when talking about important contributors to the world. Today, we are focusing on an mathematician, astronomer, surveyor and farmer, Benjamin Banneker.

Born in Baltimore County, Maryland on November 9, 1731, Benjamin Banneker was the son of a free African American women and a former enslaved African man from Guinea. Banneker was a very studious and was self taught in most of his education. At the age of around 22 (1753), Banneker made a working clock out of wood that struck every hour on the hour. He built the clock using a pocket watch as a model and carved each piece to scale. The clock kept working till his death in 1806. His clock showcased his genius and the impressive skills that were prominent in all his works.

FUN FACT

In Icon vs Hardware #1 comic, Hardware finds a time machine in a government facility made by Benjamin Banneker.

Later in life, Banneker grabbed on to opportunities to learn about astronomy, and farming mills with help from the Ellicotts, a Quaker family who believed in racial equality. Banneker was later recruited by surveyor Major Andrew Ellicott to survey the land for a new federal district. It has been reported Banneker made astronomical observations and calculations to establish base points for the new district. Banneker assisted Major Pierre L’Enfant from France who was commissioned to develop the plans for for the new city. Due to great criticism and hostility for being a foreigner (surprise, surprise), L’Enfant resigned and returned back to France. The remaining surveyor team was debating on starting the new project from scratch however Banneker reproduced L’Enfant's plans from memory in two days. The recalled plans he drew were the foundation for the street layouts, buildings and monuments that exist to this day in Washington, D.C.

Fun Fact #2

In Season 4 of the 2013 American Drama Series "Sleepy Hollow", Benjamin Banneker was highlighted for his genius designs so much that the heroes and heroines of the series would have never prevailed in their fight against the supernatural in the series without the help of Banneker's ingenuity and prowess

After helping with surveying Washington, D.C., Banneker returned home to create his very own almanac which included many of his astronomical calculations that predicted eclipses and planetary conjunctions. In 1792, Banneker published his almanac which was the first of six in a six year series of almanacs between 1792 and 1797. The 1792 almanac also included a tide table listing the methods for calculating the time of high tide at various locations along the Chesapeake Bay.

Benjamin Banneker passed away peacefully on October 25, 1806, looking at the stars in a field with his telescope. Banneker was mourned by many nations after his passing because the world was losing not only a genius astronomer, inventor, mathematician and farmer but one of the United States' first great Black inventors.