History, as it has been taught to us, is inaccurate.

Many of the accomplishments of African-Americans has been purposefully hidden.

After approximately 250 years of chattel slavery, African-Americans are responsible for many inventions, such as the gas mask.

Garrett Morgan developed what he called the safety hood after noticing how many firefighters were killed by smoke on the job.

The hood, which went over the head, featured tubes connected to wet sponges that filtered out smoke and provided fresh oxygen.

The protective mailbox - Philip B Downing created a mailbox design that featured an outer door and an inner safety door to avoid parcels being stolen.

This safety device allowed mailboxes to be set up everywhere.

The blood bank - Charles Richard Drew became interested in researching the preservation of blood when he was studying at Columbia University.

Drew discovered a method of separating red blood cells from plasma and then storing the two components separately.

Drew documented these findings in a paper that led to the first blood bank.

How about a home security system?

African-American nurse Marie Van Brittan Brown devised an early security unit for her own home.

She and her husband took out a patent for the system in the same year, and they were awarded the patent three years later, in 1969.

Home security systems commonly used today took various elements from her design.

How about the three-light traffic light?

Garrett Morgan was the first black person in Cleveland, Ohio to own a car.

After he witnessed a severe car accident at an intersection in the city, he expanded on the current traffic light by adding a yield component, warning oncoming drivers of an impending stop.

I want to tell you that there's a website out there that is committed to educating and inspiring people.

Joining me on the show today are Ken Granderson, founder and chief technology officer, and Dale Dowdie, co-founder and CEO of BlackFacts.com.

Don't go anywhere, it's going to be an exciting show.

I'll be right back.

Well, I hope you guys are ready to get into some great information, this is exciting.

And thank you both for taking the time to join me, Ken and Dale, the co-founders and creators, CEO and chief technology officers of BlackFacts.com.

This is pretty exciting for me.

I had a chance to get on the site and, as I was saying earlier, I was just overwhelmed with so much information, and many times, we didn't learn this stuff in school.

It's been hidden from us.

Or deleted, if you will.

So, it's exciting to be able to hear about your platform, learn about your platform and really have an opportunity for you to share from your perspective why you got it started and what you're hoping to accomplish with it.

So, I'm going to begin with you, Ken, and welcome to both of you on the show.

What made you create an online black history platform?

- Well, good morning, and thank you so much, Pastor Phil, for sharing your time and your platform with us.

So, Dale and I go back to 1996.

We both had our own internet-based companies and we put Boston's black communities of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan online in a project called Inner City Access.

That led to me becoming a Microsoft most-valued professional, which gave me access to all their tools, including databases.

And I came up with the idea of creating a database of black history.

In '97, a lot of black users were starting to get on AOL, and so we wanted to make sure that, when new internet users came online, we would see ourselves reflected on the internet, and so created it with an open-source list of black history facts and created a mailing list of about 600 teachers that submitted information, and we just started from then.

- That's amazing.

You think about back in the 1900s, right, my kids, they joke with me and they still give me a hard time about having an AOL account.

I'm like, I have so much information on there, it's just hard to get rid of it!

I'm sure people still do have AOL accounts.

But, Dale, your motto is learn black history, teach black history.

Why the motto and how have you guys really been able to flesh that out?

We, as black technologists, we've always wanted to build the technology to uplift the race, that's been something that we've always wanted to do.

And black history was just one segment in that.

And so, the motto was a simple way of communicating to anyone that came to the site what we were about.

We wanted people to come to the site to learn black history, but also to take away from that how important it is, and so teach black history by sharing black history.

- Right, right.

That's good, that's good.

And thinking about the history of America, many times it's relegated to the month of February and a few icons.

I can remember sitting, I was in a predominantly white school when I was a child, and I can remember, it's Black History Month, so they would talk about MLK and a few others.

And then all of the white kids in the class would look at me to get information.

There's really been a dearth of information as it relates to the accomplishments of African-Americans in the world.

Ken, why do you think black history is important to learn and how in-depth does your online databases take users through black history?

- Wow.

How much time do we have?

- 28 minutes!

- Right.

One of my things is that, when you know that you stand on the shoulders of giants, it's easier to see yourself from a higher place.

- Yeah.

- So, when we learn about folks who've come before, the kinds of things that they overcame and what they still were able to achieve, that still they rose, it can often be a reality check to the challenges that we face today.

And what's so interesting is that I went to a predominantly white school growing up also, and there was one black teacher who had an African-American studies class that introduced me to Gwendolyn Brooks and Ralph Ellison and Alex Haley, etc.

And the site is actually dedicated to Sister Jackie Lee.

So, that's why it's important, because when we see ourselves, the images of our success, the images of our accomplishment, it shows us what we can do ourselves.

- Yeah, that's so true.

I've mentioned some of the inventions, if you will, of African-Americans leading in, in the introduction.

And there's a there's so many more, right?

But it's not information that we readily have access to, and so many of our children are robbed from the opportunities to know that there are black inventors.

And I said, you know, after 250 years of chattel slavery, which was some of the most treacherous handling of individuals in the world's history, still, our folks were able to rise and create and build and invent after being denied education, being denied their own history, being misused and abused through the trauma of slavery, Jim Crow, right?

The slave codes and all of those things.

But there is still some internal strength that we've been able to tap into that causes us to be able to create.

You know, one of the ways that we connect with kids and when we're talking to them and educating them, like, hey, you know that Super Soaker that you have?

That was created by an African-American male.

You know that peanut butter that you're enjoying, right?

That was created by a black man.

So, being able to help them understand that, number one, the sojourn of African-Americans didn't begin here in America, that it goes beyond the shores of the West, but also that, while here, even under the most dire straits, our folks have been able to really rebound and to continue to do exciting things.

Thinking about Lonnie Johnson, right, the NASA engineer and the work that they were able to do.

So, I think it's important for us to continue to encourage our kids.

Now, Ken, let's talk a little bit about the journey and how effective it's been in getting into schools and working with - and this is for Ken or Dale, either one of you - to talk about how it's been able to impact the educational system?

- Yeah, I think Dale is better.

Yeah.

You know, I'm the tech guy, he's the business guy and the relationships guy.

- I love it, I love it.

- So, Black Facts became popular with schools because of Black History Month.

You know, kids would go online and there's always a Black History Month project and they begin to search for stuff, and we found that our site would always have an explosion of visitors from schools that were just doing research on black history.

And as you said, in our mind, black history is every day of the year.

You know, black history is US history, it's world history, it is history in general.

And we wanted to make sure that schools knew that we were a resource that they could trust and be comfortable with.

And it kind of happened organically.

We did not necessarily reach out to them, they found us because of the dynamism of our resources, where every day, every time you loaded the site, you would find new information.

And now we're number one on all three search engines, and so we want to leverage that position to make sure that we continue to spread the message, both nationally and internationally, about black history.

- Wow, that's amazing.

And so, what does it look like for you to partner with corporations?

You know, we've been doing a number of shows on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Every company now has a new vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.

From a corporate side, back to my corporate guy, like, what does it look like for you to partner with organizations and corporations to provide this information?

- So, we have something that we call our diversity content widget.

In our opinion, Black Facts solves the problem of, you know, corporations that are looking to include diversity as part of their mission and messaging because our diversity content widget delivers content on a specific topic, whether it's LGBTQ, Afro-Latino, women of color, and it delivers them in a plug-and-play fashion to any organization.

Our content is measurable, so that we're able to say how many people have actually viewed that, because our belief is that the first step of inclusion is being informed.

- Yes, sir.

- If you are informed about other people's cultures, about their challenges and their successes, then you can be empathetic.

And if you can be empathetic, then you can actually understand what they've overcome and why it is that their culture is important.

So, we try to make that content available in a plug-and-play fashion to corporations who are looking to incorporate diversity and inclusion in their messaging.

- Hmm, that's exciting, that's exciting.

- Can I add to that?

- Please, Ken.

- You know, one of the ways that we would love to see us get into more corporations, because I think it'll help everyone, the companies who are serious about inclusion but might not know how, is by connecting with some of the black professionals and employee resource groups to just get our content in there, because unlike unconscious bias workshops that can make certain people uncomfortable, our information is opt-in.

You can just get new black history information every day with what we call our Black Facts Minute, a video for every day of the year.

Because, as black professionals, while we talk a lot about the kids, the kids, the kids - you know, we are motivated as black professionals to use our area of expertise to reach out, both to the kids and to other adults who don't know, folks that people are working with.

So, you know, they can benefit from understanding some of the things that we've done too.

So, you know, we really would love to connect with folks, not just at the corporate, the diversity head folks, but the folks who are in the companies who, you know, want to find an easier way to have these uncomfortable, but they don't have to be, conversations.

- Yeah, yeah.

We try to call it courageous conversations, right?

- Exactly!

Have those courageous conversations, well said.

- Yes, sir.

It is courageous, right?

Because it makes people uncomfortable.

I am not the most popular guy in the world at this point - I'm a pastor, I'm a preacher of the gospel - but when these issues begin to be brought up, people sometimes push back.

And what I've found was that many times when we begin to talk about race and when we begin to talk about ethnicity and background, people get very uncomfortable.

But uncomfortability is a good thing because it can elicit change, right?

It can be the impetus to try to come to a better understanding, and that's really what we've been trying to do on the show.

Now, from the tech side, Ken, how do you do your part in regards to database and acquisition of information and decide how it's going to get disseminated?

- Our engine that grabs the content, we called it Timbuktu, after the museum and, you know, knowledge, famous Malian city.

And Timbuktu, it aggregates online information, pulls in information from online, it classifies it using artificial intelligence and then it disseminates it, it syndicates through our website, through e-mail and through our client websites.

Right now, we are pulling black news from 35 countries around the world, 18 of them being predominantly black.

And as far as the history, there's some historical content there.

At the present, you're kind of looking at the folks who sourced the history, the two of us, because we don't have a team yet.

You know, we're just built.

We just incorporated last year.

This is a passion project until last year, so we are pulling in the content, we have tools that can allow anyone to post links, but that would require moderation and more staffing.

So, that's a 2022 thing.

- Yeah.

Well, thank you for that.

You know, understanding how it all works and how it's all put together, you guys have been doing this since the '90s and then now you launch out into incorporating and really taking it to the next level.

There's a funding program going on right now, you want to talk about that a little bit, Dale, and maybe talk to us about what that's about and how you guys are moving forward?

- So, we have partnered with FundBlackFounders, which is an organization that really focuses on helping black technologists and black entrepreneurs to be introduced to the idea of crowdfunding.

And crowdfunding, the rewards crowdfunding is really where, if you believe in whatever the program and whatever the entrepreneur's business is all about, you can provide them with support and, in exchange, you're not necessarily getting equity in the company, but you're getting different levels of rewards, visibility and things along those lines.

And we have a campaign running right now that, if you go to FundBlackFounders.com /BlackFacts, you will actually see our crowdfunding campaign.

And our goal is really to do two things - we want people to be aware of what we have.

We have never met a person of color who is over 25 years old who has not gone on to Black Facts and been like, "Wow, I did not know this existed.

"I did not even understand the breadth of knowledge."

So, part of the crowdfunding campaign and the mission of crowdfunding is actually introducing the owners to the audience.

We are getting out from behind the curtain.

I mean, honestly, Ken and I have always focused on the product and not necessarily on ourselves.

So, we're finding out that people want to know who is behind Black Facts.

Why did you create Black Facts?

The same things that you're asking us in this interview are things people are coming to us and asking about.

And the second part is to say, we want to give people an opportunity to help us take things to another level.

If you believe that black history is important, if you believe the idea of diversity and inclusion messaging and sharing that within your corporation, whether at the corporate level or in the employee resource group, if you believe that we as people of color should be in control of our narrative, tell our stories, then you need to help support BlackFacts.com.

And so, our crowdfunding campaign is really about introducing ourselves to the audience and then giving them the opportunity to help us grow and expand and build a staff, because we're really just two black technologists who are passionate about our people, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have the staff to do all the things that we've done.

And so many people are like, "Wow, you guys must have a big organization."

And we're like, "Huh?"

- I thought so, I thought so.

Absolutely.

- It's two guys who just believe in what we're doing and doing the best that we can, and we need our audience and believers who support what we're doing to help us grow to another level.

- Yeah, you guys have an amazing vision.

My dad always used to tell me that vision was seeing farther than your eyes can see.

And evidently, you all have a vision, there's scripture in the back that talks about write the vision down and make it plain so that those that come along and read it can run with it.

And I really feel that more people need to be able to know that Black Facts is out there.

And I think it's so important, what you guys are doing.

Ken, you were going to say something, I didn't mean to cut you off.

- Oh, no, no.

Just to piggyback, I mean, earlier you mentioned one of our mottos,.

we have different slogans and mottos.

One of them, one of our newer ones, is that we are protecting the future of black history.

- Wow.

- You know, because you mentioned earlier historical erasure, you know, the history books are written and traditionally have been written by the victors of wars of colonization.

As technologists, we recognize that technology has changed the game, so we are protecting the future of black history on a technology platform that we created, we control and we own.

So, we are asking your audience, our audience in general, you know, check our history, our background, you'll see some of it in the crowdfunding video, and trust that we're going to continue to be good stewards of using the skills that we've been able to develop to pick up the baton from our ancestors and the folks we celebrate in black history, and make sure we take it to the next level, because that's what we're about.

- You know, that's so amazing because when you think about, you said technology has really changed the game, right?

I thought about Ahmaud Arbery, right?

I thought about George Floyd.

You know, there were no cameras, as far as we know, with Breonna Taylor, but we've been crying about this violence towards African-Americans by police for years, and even the Rodney King thing, right?

which let us all know, we all probably need to carry cameras with us, right?

But it's been going on for years and white folks have been saying, no, no, it's just an isolated incident, and come to find out it's systemic, historical, you know, founded in white supremacy and it is impacting our community.

There's trauma that is connected to all of this and we say, yeah, the cameras are great, but now you all are really taking it to another level with the technology, it's so important to be able to communicate.

I'd also say this conversation about critical race theory that, you know, they've politicized, this really skews the terminology, this really trumps that because these are facts that are being communicated in an academic way to really help shoot down some of the misnomers and lies that have happened over all the years.

Dale, what do you want our viewing audience to know, as we're coming closer to the end of the show?

- Well, honestly, I would like to let them know that... ..we believe that the technology that we're building can protect and preserve not just our history, but our culture.

And we are trying to leverage that as many ways as possible.

Black history and black historical videos and black news are just the beginning.

We hope that they'll take a few minutes and just visit BlackFacts.com.

I know that you may be challenged remembering FundBlackFounders, but if you go to BlackFacts.com, right after you get to the website, you'll see a little pop up video that says, hey, we're crowdfunding.

And it will take you to the crowdfunding site if you want to help support what we're doing.

But even if you're unable to support financially or otherwise, we ask you to do two things - please watch our crowdfunding video, because it explains why it is so important, the things that we're trying to get done, and then share it with your network.

Just let people know that there's a resource that is created, coded, controlled by us.

It doesn't matter what they do on Facebook, it doesn't matter what they do on Instagram - this is our technology.

We're not building it on somebody else's platform, it is ours and we control that.

And if you support that, then please take a few minutes and at least share and let other people know that this is something important that they should take a look at.

- Thank you, thank you so much for that.

And to you, my brother.

Can you talk a little...?

I just I saw some stuff on there that goes beyond African-American history.

You also incorporate and include world history, history of Africa, Egypt, Timbuktu.

Can you talk a little bit about that and why that's important?

And then I'll give you some closing thoughts as well.

- Yes, well, so... Black Facts, there's too much information because we're just like fire-hose kind of folks, right?

But it comes down to three things - black history, black videos and black news.

And on the videos on the main menu bar, there's a videos link that has different series.

Our education series has videos that go from ancient African empires up to the Black Power movement.

We talk about several African empires, including ancient Egypt.

We have a piece on Mansa Musa, We then go to the Middle Passage.

We talk about the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth, Black Wall Street, the Great Migration, etc.

So I would say, you know, just go through those.

We have some other series on blackness that's not just American, because both Dale and I actually have Caribbean roots.

He's actually from Jamaica.

- OK. - But we got Afro-Latino.

There's a hundred million black folks in Brazil alone.

You know?

Folks like Gwen Ifill, since we're on PBS here.

- That's right.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, we have a whole series on Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean.

We're all one people, but we don't know it because another one of those successful tactics is divide and conquer.

So, you know, just visit, check out the videos, sit back, get a coffee or tea or lemonade and just learn and you'll be inspired.

- I love that.

Our church is launching a freedom school out of Morehouse College, James Lawson Freedom School this summer.

And we'll have 50 minds of children that are going to be there with college interns and they will be learning history.

Well, guess where we're going to be sending them as part of their curriculum?

We're going to be sending them to BlackFacts.com and participating however we can to help support the effort.

Love to be able to get some T-shirts that says Black Facts Matter.

So, we are definitely supportive of the work that you are doing.

Can you show a little bit of that T-shirt too?

Because those T-shirts are on sale, right?

Yeah.

Black Facts Matter www.BlackFacts.com, you can order them on the website.

So, we want to send folks there to make sure that we are supporting efforts like yours to help educate, inspire and empower people with information and this information that has been hidden.

And so, once again, on behalf... Go ahead, go ahead.

- One more thought, excuse me..

When you go to the home page, sign up for the newsletter.

Because we don't have time to talk about the HBCU showcase that we're working on, we don't have time to talk about the Say Their Names digital memorial.

We start off with Emmett Till, OK?

So, yes.

- Awesome.

Well, listen... - Subscribe to the newsletter.

- Yeah, no, thank you.

Thank you, guys, so much.

We could do an hour, I'm sure, because you just have so much information to offer.

We're limited in time, but on behalf of everyone here at PBS39, I would like to thank the two of you for coming on to share the amazing work that you're doing.

And to our viewing audience, I'd like to thank you as well.

And on behalf of everyone here at PBS, God bless you and keep being courageous.

We'll see you next week.