On this date in 1923, one of the first traffic signals in the United States was patented by a Black man.
Garrett Morgan applied for and acquired a U.S. patent for this invention. The patent number was 1,475,024. Morgan's technology was later patented in Great Britain and Canada.
General Electric bought Morgan's patent for $40,000, and his traffic management device was used throughout North America until it was replaced by the red, yellow and green traffic signals currently used around the world.
