107 Jamz Celebrates Black History Month- Today In History

Today is in history we salute the great inventor Elijah McCoy.  Elijah J. McCoy was born a free man of color in 1844 in Colchester, Ontario Canada and was one of 11 children.  His parents, George and Mildred McCoy were fugitive slaves who had escaped from Kentucky to Canada thanks to help from the Underground Railroad.

Elijah's family didn't stay in Canada though, in 1847 they came back to the U.S. and settled in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  When he was 15, Elijah traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland of all places, for an apprenticeship where he would later gain certification as a mechanical engineer.

Once back in the states, Elijah took a job as a oiler at the Michigan Central Railroad in his hometown.  There he developed and invented an automatic lubricator for oiling the steam engines for steam engines of locomotives and ships.  Though it was many years later, he finally obtained his first patent on July 12, 1872.

Ironically, the saying "The Real McCoy", of course meaning the real thing is directly linked to Elijah's invention of an oil-drip cup.  Work has it that railroad engineers' looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name, and inquire if a locomotive was fitted with "the real McCoy system".

Because of his  inventions and many  contributions to America, Elijah J. McCoy has been inducted into the .  National Inventors Hall of Fame, there he is joined by thousands of great inventors.

Also on this day in black history, James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in 1902 and Diana Ross married Arne Naess in Geneva in 1986.