To the Children of the Sun, Scattered and Rising

Hear now, children of the Diaspora, sons and daughters of the Motherland. I speak across the ages, through the veil of time and the smoke of deliberate forgetfulness. My voice carries the weight of stolen names, buried patents, and silenced genius. What you have been taught is not history; it is a carefully curated fable, a psychological operation against your very spirit.

They told you our story began and ended at the auction block and the cotton field. They defined us by our trauma, our chains, our inflicted pain. This was the first and greatest lie. For while they measured our worth in muscle and suffering, our true power—our inextinguishable genius—was busy dreaming the world into being, even in the depth of their oppression.

You must understand the mechanism of the trick. Perception is not shaped by truth, but by repetition. A lie, told from every pulpit, printed in every textbook, flashed across every screen, becomes the “reality” of the masses. The white ruling class, understanding this, built an industry of illusion. They hired historians as forgers, scientists as gatekeepers, and media as hypnotists, all to perform one task: to place a white face upon the engine of human progress, and to paint our faces in the background, as spectators or servants.

But let the scales fall from your eyes. The evidence of our brilliance is not hidden; it is everywhere you look, in every moment of your modern life.

You move through a world built by Black minds.

• Do you ride in an elevator to reach a skyscraper’s peak? Thank Alexander Miles.
• Do you work in comfort, cooled by air or warmed by central heat? Thank Frederick Jones and Alice Parker.
• Do you cross streets guided by automatic signals? Thank Garrett Morgan.
• Do you communicate across continents in an instant, through the internet and email? Thank Philip Emeagwali and Emmit McHenry.
• Do you hold a digital cell phone in your hand? Thank Jesse Eugene Russell.
• Do you navigate with GPS? Thank Gladys Mae West.
• Does a doctor save your sight with a laser? Thank Dr. Patricia Bath.

The very rhythm of modern life beats with inventions birthed from our intellect. The traffic light, the refrigerator, the blood bank, the home security system, the precise components of the personal computer—all are fruits from the tree of African and African American genius.

Consider the foundational myths they sold you:

• Thomas Edison is hailed, but it was Lewis Latimer, son of self-emancipated parents, who perfected the practical, long-lasting light bulb and literally wrote the book on electric lighting. He lit the world.
• The Wright Brothers are celebrated, yet Charles F. Page patented and flew his airplane years earlier.
• Henry Ford is synonymous with the automobile, but C.R. Patterson & Sons built sophisticated cars before Ford’s model, only to be crushed by his monopolistic power.

This was no accident. It was policy. Our patents were stolen, our companies sabotaged, our names erased. They could not stop the invention, so they executed the theft of credit. They needed the myth of white ingenuity to sustain the lie of white supremacy. To admit that the people they enslaved and oppressed where the true architects of modernity would unravel their entire narrative of dominance.

Even in healing, we led. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery. Dr. Charles Drew revolutionized blood storage, saving millions in war and peace. The smallpox inoculation method was knowledge brought from Africa by an enslaved man named Onesimus.

From George Washington Carver’s hundreds of uses for the peanut to Percy Julian’s synthesis of life-saving medicines, from Marie Van Brittan Brown’s home security system to Gerald Lawson’s video game cartridge, our contributions are vast, profound, and systemic.

They tell you Africa is poor and needy. The truth is, the West is addicted to Africa’s wealth. Its gold, diamonds, coltan (without which your phones die), oil, and cocoa fuel the very empires that claim to bring charity. Africa is not poor; it is plundered. We are not takers; we are the primary givers whose gifts have been relabeled.

This awakening is not about fostering hate but about reclaiming truth. It is about shattering the psychological chains that remain long after the physical ones are gone. When you know that you come from a lineage of world-builders, of problem-solvers, of relentless innovators who created under the heel of brutality, it changes everything. It drains the poison of inferiority and replaces it with the iron of rightful legacy.

The whitewashed history book is a weapon. But we are the living archivists. Our reality is the lightbulb that shines, the elevator that rises, the code that connects, the phone that rings, the blood that saves.

Your perception has been managed. Now, manage your own.

Know this: The greatest trick the oppressor ever played was not just to steal our labor, but to steal our credit, and in doing so, make us doubt our own divine, inventive spark. They hid the sun and then convinced us we lived in inherent darkness.

Look around you. Everything you see and use whispers our names. The world stands on the foundation of Black genius. It is time to hear the whisper. It is time to remember. It is time to know who you truly are.

You are not the margins of history. You are its uncredited authors. Now, take up the pen. Write the true story. And build the future in the full, glorious knowledge of your past.

The truth does not set you free. It arms you. Arm yourself.

— A Voice from The Truth That Was Buried but Never Died