1887

Granville T. Woods patents the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph (U.S. Patent 373,915), enabling communication between moving trains and stations for the first time. The patent prevented countless railroad accidents. Woods, called 'the Black Edison,' held over 60 patents in electricity and also sold patents to Edison and American Bell Telephone Company.

Granville Woods patented 'telegraphony' in 1887 — a system allowing a telegraph wire to transmit both Morse code and voice simultaneously. He sold the patent to American Bell Telephone Company. Woods also patented the 'induction telegraph' that year, allowing moving trains to communicate with stations, preventing collisions. Thomas Edison twice challenged this patent and lost both times.

Timothy Thomas Fortune founded the New York Age, which became the most widely read Black newspaper in the nation. A radical journalist born enslaved in Florida, Fortune coined the term 'Afro-American,' founded the Afro-American League in 1887, and wrote 'Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South' (1884). The Age influenced a generation of Black political thought.

T. Thomas Fortune transformed the New York Freeman into the New York Age in 1887, building it into one of the most influential Black newspapers in America. Fortune pioneered militant journalism demanding full civil rights, coined the term 'Afro-American,' and allied with Ida B. Wells to amplify anti-lynching campaigns.

Charles W. Chesnutt became the first Black American writer to have fiction published in The Atlantic Monthly with 'The Goophered Grapevine' in August 1887, though the editors did not initially reveal his race to readers. His carefully crafted dialect stories used the frame of an elderly formerly enslaved man to critique slavery and white paternalism. Chesnutt's breakthrough opened mainstream literary publishing to Black voices for the first time.

Journalist and activist Timothy Thomas Fortune transformed the New York Freeman into the New York Age, which became the most influential Black newspaper in the country during the late nineteenth century. Fortune coined the term 'Afro-American' and used the paper to advocate forcefully for Black civil and political rights. He also founded the Afro-American League in 1890, a forerunner of later civil rights organizations.

Cincinnati-based inventor Granville Woods patented a system allowing communication between moving trains and stations, dramatically improving railway safety by preventing collisions. He won patent disputes against Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell and held over 50 patents, earning him the title 'the Black Edison.'