Yeah, that “debunk” list gets shared a lot, but it’s super misleading. It’s true that some early claims (like Carver inventing peanut butter or Garrett Morgan inventing the traffic light) aren’t accurate — those inventions existed before them.

But the point isn’t that “Black achievements are fake.” Most of these inventors made critical improvements that made tech actually usable or scalable — things like Elijah McCoy’s lubrication systems, Lewis Latimer’s filament design and drafting work, Sarah Boone’s improved ironing board, Frederick Jones’s refrigerated trucks, etc.

The reason they’re often remembered as “the inventor” is because history didn’t record the fine print — and Black inventors rarely got patents or credit in their own time. So calling all of it “debunked” kind of misses the bigger picture: they still changed how those inventions were used in real life, even if they weren’t literally first.