Black History (Jerry Lawson)

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Jerry Lawson (December 1, 1940 – April 9, 2011) a self taught Electronic Engineer. He lead the team that innovated the video game cartridge for the Fairchild Channel F video console released in 1976. Before the cartridge was developed you had to by a system to play only a few games and if you wanted to play different games you had to buy a new system. The innovation of the cartridge now allowed individuals to have one system and a library of games.

Jerry had an interests in scientific hobbies like building his own ham radio and chemistry. While working for Fairchild, Lawson and Ron Jones were the only black members of the Homebrew Computer Club witch included member like Steve Job and Steve Wozniak. Later in 1980, Jerry left Fairchild and founded  Videosoft, a video game development company that developed software for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s.

 

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Black History (O.W. Gurley)

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  • O.W. Gurley was a wealthy Black landowner, born to former enslaved Africans, who traveled the United States to take part in the Oklahoma Land Grab of 1889.
  • The young businessman resigned from a presidential appointment under then-president Grover Cleveland to venture out and found his own town.

 

O.W. Gurley, the Visionary Who Fostered Decades of Prosperity and Wealth for Black Folks with the Creation of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street