To the Rescue! Garrett Morgan Underground

The incredible story of an Amercan inventor who's creative ideas came from wanting to help others. Two of his inventions, a smoke mask and a three signal stop light, were inspired after seeing and hearing of incidents where peoples were injured and killed in accidents.

What led me to the discovery of Garrett Morgan's story was my research of Confederate generals of the American civil war. I learned that confederate Brig. General John Hunt Morgan might've been the biological grandfather of inventor Garrett Morgan by way of a slave woman.

The general is best remembered for leading a 46 day Confederate military campaign named after him "Morgan's Raid." It's goal was to divert union troops from the major campaigns of the war and frighten northern citizens. The 1863 raids had some success but ended with Morgan's surrender in Ohio.

Though the relation between black inventor and white Confederate general is alleged, I find it ironic that the inventor might never have been free to create his life saving inventions had the general and his confederate states of America government been successful in their rebellion.

When we look at solving the issues of race in America today, we must consider the history of how we as a nation have condoned separate and unequal treatment of peoples of color at a cost to the nation. All the labor and creative ideas that peoples of color have contributed to making America great, might not have been, had white supremacist separatists had they're way in 1860's America. Unfortunately, there are still sentiments of Confederacy politics in America. It took a war to overcome American slavery, let's hope the nation remembers the lessons learned from that awfully bloody civil war.



CanLit for LittleCanadians: To the Rescue! Garrett Morgan Underground (Great I...: by Monica Kulling Illustrated by David Parkins Tundra Books 978-1-77049-520-3 32 pp. Ages 5-8 January 2016 The son of former...