From her Wikipedia article:
The device was completed in 1986 after Bath conducted research on lasers in Berlin and patented in 1988, making her the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a medical purpose.
This bit of trivia is actually what surprised me most. “A medical purpose” is so general, and 1988 is so late by comparison.
It’s easy to forget sometimes how recent segregation still is. It reminds me of this letter from Emory university dated 1959, less than 75 years ago, denying an applicant for being “a member of the negro race.” They only apologized for it about five years ago.
Ruby Bridges–the little girl featured in maybe the most famous photo of desegregation, being walked home from school by US marshals, the photo that inspired Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With”–she’s still alive. And not super old, either; she’ll turn 72 this September.
That’s the fact that blows me away about segregation.
“The past is never dead; it isn’t even past.”
A true visionary.
Thanks to who ever posted this. It reminded me I needed to make an eye exam appointment. Booked!
Couldn’t have done it without you.
Ta
