CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – His inventions transcended his life, an innovator and entrepreneur who championed racial equality and served as a role model.

A school off West 44th Street in Cleveland bears his name, and each year in March, they celebrate Garrett Morgan’s birthday.

“We have a man who’s a pioneer, who is an innovator and who found a way to break through despite the forces of racism in society, in our country,” said Chris Ronayne on Garrett Morgan Day in 2024.

Born in Kentucky in 1877, Morgan moved to Cleveland at 18 in 1895, repairing sewing machines on West 6th Street and coming up with his first inventions, a belt fastener for sewing machines and a zig-zag attachment.

“I couldn’t be any prouder to be a Morgan,” said his granddaughter, Sandra Morgan.

“He knew who he was,” she continued. “He looked in the mirror every day and knew what he had to offer, and he brought it every single day.”

In 1914, Morgan patented a smoke hood or breathing device, an invention that won first prize at the International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation in New York City.

Two years later, he rescued workers trapped in a water intake tunnel 50 feet under Lake Erie, using the smoke hood to protect his eyes from smoke and featuring air tubes near the ground to draw in clean air.

Morgan also put the first three-color stoplight at Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in 1914, patenting it in 1923 and selling it to General Electric for $40,000.

He also founded the Cleveland Call, a weekly newspaper that merged to create the Call & Post, a paper serving the Black community in Cleveland since 1927.

“His prints are still on our modern-day society,” said Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne.

Morgan died in 1963, but his legacy lives on, from schools in Cleveland, Chicago, and Kentucky to a fire boat used by Cleveland Firefighters to being named one of the most influential African Americans.

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