Did you know that the first black comic book hero debuted in 1947? “Lion Man” was a college-educated Black American sent to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) by the United Nations to investigate a uranium deposit. His story was but one of nine depicted in the first (and only) issue of All-Negro Comics, the first comic book created by an all black team. That team was led by a journalist named Orrin Cromwell Evans.
Dispatches From the Internets
Orrin C. Evans Showed Us Black People Could Be (Super)heroes Too
Lucy Hicks Anderson Was an Early Black Trans Pioneer
While the term transgender is a recent development, trans people have always been with us. In the white supremacist system that dominates the United States and has declared cit-het people “normal” (and everyone else “abnormal”), being trans has never been easy, but it’s been especially dangerous for black trans women. Knowing this, I am awestruck by the bravery of Lucy Hicks Anderson, a black trans woman born in Kentucky in 1886, who became a renown socialite and hostess in 1940s California.
Maya Angelou Persevered, but Many Don’t
There are so many reasons to love and admire Maya Angelou. Most of these stem from her novels, poetry, and civil rights work, but I’m going to pick an unusual one: she was determined to be the first black woman to conduct a cable car in San Francisco. And she succeeded at 16.
Jerry Lawson Made Home Video Game Systems Possible
One of my fondest childhood memories was getting a Nintendo Entertainment System for my birthday. It wasn’t the expensive set with the robot and the gun (we were poor), but my mom somehow managed to scrape together the $199 (over $470 in today’s dollars) for the system. It opened up a whole new world for me.
I only recently discovered that this fixture of my childhood was made possible by a black engineer named Jerry Lawson.
Apply for a Spot in My 2020–21 Mentorship Cohort
I’m Running for the W3C Advisory Board
As many of you know, I’ve been involved in the push for web standards for the better part of two decades. I caught the bug early and have been advocating for their use in pretty much every article, book, talk, and workshop I’ve created. I’ve also had the great pleasure of helping run the Web Standards Project (WaSP), a group whose impact on the web cannot be understated.1 And so, when a handful of my colleagues reached out to see if I’d consider running for the W3C Advisory Board, I was… well… speechless. What an honor it is to be nominated, especially out of the blue like that!
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Most of the truly impressive and important work was done by the folks who founded the Web Standards Project. I can’t take credit for more than a handful of our activities, but I was honored to have played a bit role in its history. ↩
My Own, Personal, PWA
Progressive Web Apps are often something we think of as building for others, but while I was redoing the Service Worker implementation on this site—to improve performance for you, dear reader—I decided to throw in a little goody for me as well, in the form of the Share Target.
Introducing My 2019 Mentees
Late last year, I opened applications for my 2019 mentorship cohort.. To say I was overwhelmed by the response is a drastic understatement. I got so many awesome applications, that I decided to increase the slots from two to five! In the end, I’m really excited about the folks I’ll be working with this year: Adewale Abati, Olu Niyi-Awosusi, Marcy Sutton, Sara Wegman, and Desirée Zamora García.
I’ve been working with all five of them for a few months now and wanted to highlight a bit about who they are and what we are working on.
Angie Turner King Invested Her Energy in Others
Chances are you’ve never heard the name Angie Turner King, and that’s because, like so many black women, she invested her time and energy in other people. In King’s case, students.
Margaret Collins Used Biology to Push for Equality
Unless you’re really into bugs, the name Margaret S. Collins may not mean that much to you. She was an entomologist who specialized in the study of termites, publishing prolifically throughout her career. She wasn’t just the “Termite Lady,” though, she was also an advocate for civil rights who pushed for equality through scientific investigation, risking both her life and freedom.