-New Urban CULTURE- Black History Month Celebrates: The Father of Modern Safety, Garrett Augustus Morgan

Although he is also recognized as the inventor of hair relaxer, Garrett Morgan is primarily known as the inventor of the traffic light and modern-day gas mask, leading to the founding of the National Safety Device Company in 1914. Garrett Augustus Morgan was born on March 4, 1877, in Paris, Kentucky where he spent most of his time working on his parents' farm. His parents were former slaves.

As a teenager, Morgan moved north to Cincinnati, Ohio, where worked different jobs to support himself and hired a personal tutor for schooling. In 1895, Morgan moved to Cleveland, Ohio and obtained a position as sewing-machine repairman. Morgan had accumulated money to begin his own sewing machine-repair business twelve years later, and his tailoring business was equipped with machines he personally designed. It was during this period that he invented the apparatus that creates the zig-zag stitch on sewing machines and discovered a formula to straighten hair.

During the 1910s and 1920s, Morgan continued to invent new items. Most of these items were to improve safety on the streets and in the workplace. Over the next several years, Morgan expanded his business interests to include a tailoring establishment and a personal-grooming products company. He is recognized as updating the rudimentary version of the European gas mask for which he received a patent in 1916, and its superior design was utilized by the United States Army in World War I.

Morgan is most famous for inventing the first traffic signal. Morgan, himself an automobile owner, witnessed a crash between a car and a buggy killing a child, which was said to be the impetus for the inventor to create the stoplight. He received his patent for the traffic light in 1923.  Morgan eventually patented the device in Canada and Great Britain as well, before eventually selling his patent to General Electric.

In addition to a prolific career as an inventor and philanthropist, Morgan was also the founder of one of America's first black media entities via the establishment of the 

African American newspaper, Cleveland Call (later known as the Cleveland Call & Post).  In the documentary below, family, friends, and historians share the inspiring story of the man behind the mythic figure known as  "The Father of Modern Safety".