This is Karen Hunter and welcome to the hub. Okay, welcome back to our patent series. And again, this is about bridging

knowledge for everybody watching and I'm so grateful that we have

intellectual properties attorney, patent attorney, extraordinary, Shantavia Johnson, joining us once again

to talk about somebody who did something back in the game.

Thank you, Karen.

It's always good to see you.

You look beautiful as always. this will be a wonderful conversation. So I'm excited to be here today and to talk about this person who everybody should know named Benjamin Montgomery. Are you familiar with Benjamin Montgomery in his story?

I never know. Who is Benjamin Montgomery? Oh my gosh so this is someone everybody needs to know and understand,

and for a specific reason.

And that specific reason is because, particularly

during American slavery, black inventors, many of them enslaved or formerly enslaved, would create things that not only shaped American economic success,

but also just created this innovation ecosystem

that otherwise the country would not have had.

And so Benjamin Montgomery was one of those.

He never received a patent because he was

enslaved but he's got a really really unique interesting story that we just have to

talk about today. So he was in Bond born in bondage. He was so he was born into slavery in 1819 and he invented something called a it's called a steamboat propeller and what was unique about this

particular steamboat propeller was that it was designed for shallow water.

This was in like the late 1850s and what was so important about having a steamboat propeller

that could go through shallow water

is because these steamboats would deliver

all the supplies people needed to stay alive.

...