Tech History Is More Than Just 'White, Male Wizards'

 

Tech History Is More Than Just 'White, Male Wizards'

Those of us who have studied the history of technology have likely read a lot about "white, male wizards who magically manufactured digital tools that determine our future," says NYU Professor Charlton D. McIlwain.

"I [wanted] to tell the powerful story of the black women and men who took their own technological futures in their own hands," he says. "How black folks from the seventies and beyond pulled themselves up by their technological bootstraps and began to use computers and the Internet to determine our own fates."

Dr. McIlwain, Vice Provost of Faculty Engagement and Development at NYU, and a professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU's Steinhardt School, is doing just that in his new book: Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter. He explores racial injustice and highlights a largely unknown history of the engineers, entrepreneurs, and hobbyists of color who helped build the internet as we know it today.

We spoke to Dr. McIlwain ahead of the book's release on Nov. 1, and the Afrotech conference in Oakland, California, on Nov. 7. Here are edited and condensed excerpts from our conversation.

What I did not know was that my pursuit to understand its digital roots would lead me back to the 1960s, to chronicle a much longer story about black people's relationship to computing, the internet, and on through today's new innovations in so-called artificial intelligence. I made it my challenge, my goal, and my responsibility to correct the historical record for many generations of people.

Derrick Brown. Tell us about him.
I met Derrick when I first discovered the "Universal Black Pages" [the first black search engine/directory, launched at Georgia Tech in 1994], one of the most significant moments in the development of black cyberculture.

From the moment I first talked with Derrick, I could tell his passions ran long and deep. He channeled those passions into the technologies he helped to build while he was an engineering grad student at Georgia Tech. But his passion was really about people. Black people. Using this new tool called the web to bring us together, to showcase the wealth of knowledge, ingenuity, and talent replete within black culture.

and became the owner of Boston's largest and only black-owned computer store. He was also an activist who used his Osborne I, the world's first 'portable' computer, to connect with people in the city's black community information center.

William didn't set out to be an activist. He had ideas. He gained valuable skills while working at IBM. He wanted to make money and live the good life. But when you end up in a place like Boston, with its history of bitter racial politics, and add to that being one of the few with the kind of computer knowledge and expertise he had, you basically become an activist by default. Wiliam's mission became not just to sell computer hardware and software, but to show his customers in mostly white Cambridge that he, and people like him, had a stake in the growing computer revolution.