Do you know that some of the world´s most popular inventions were created by African-Americans? In honor of Black History Month Inventors Digest is currently celebrating the valuable contributions of famous black inventors.

As an example the magazine names Lewis Howard Latimer. In 1874, he copatented (with Charles W. Brown) an improved toilet system for railroad cars. In 1881 Latimer received another patent for the „Process of Manufacturing Carbons“, an improved method for the production of carbon filaments used in lightbulbs.

We want to introduce you another important African-American inventor – Garrett Morgan.

He created a Safety Hood and 1914 patented it as a Breathing Device, which later came to be known as the Gas Mask. Morgan’s Gas Mask consisted of a hood with two long tubes, one allowing in clean air and the other allowing the user to exhale air out of the hood.

After witnessing a collision between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage, Morgan also took his turn at inventing a traffic signal. As you can read on about.com the Morgan traffic signal was a T-shaped pole unit that featured three positions: Stop, Go and an all-directional stop position. This „third position“ halted traffic in all directions to allow pedestrians to cross streets more safely.

Do you want to know who invented the elevator, the lawn mower or the refrigerator.

Here you find a list of other important African-American inventors. Check it out!