January 17: The Real McCoy

By Magdalena I. García

Every year, in preparation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month, I find books to read with my son M. This weekend we read an illustrated children’s story called The Real McCoy, The Life of an African-American Inventor, by Wendy Towle, with paintings by Wil Clay. M. is 12 years old and he has an aptitude for engineering and sculpting. His hands are always busy designing, shaping, or transforming something using the most unlikely raw materials—from the red wax cover on Gouda cheese to the twisty ties from the produce section of the supermarket—. He is also a foreign-born, cappuccino-skin, Hispanic boy being raised in a whipped cream school system, so this book is an excellent read for him.

We don’t really know where the expression “the real McCoy” came from, but one possible source is the life of this little-known inventor. Here is a quick summary. Elijah McCoy was born in 1844 to fugitive slaves in Canada. From an early age he displayed an avid interest in mechanical devices. He travelled to Scotland to receive formal training in engineering. At the end of the Civil War, Elijah returned to the US, and he settled in Ypsilantli, Michigan. During the war President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and Elijah hoped he could live as a free man in the land of his ancestors. But despite his education, Elijah could only find work as a fireman/oilman for the Michigan Central Railroad in the United States. All because of the color of his skin.

Elijah wanted to make his job more efficient, so using his training and expertise as an engineer, he worked for years until he perfected a design for a lubricating cup. The train would no longer have to stop every few miles, and oilmen like Elijah would get a well-deserved break. At first, many engineers were skeptical of Elijah’s oil cup. They were not interested in the invention of a Black man. But the railroad owners at Michigan Central recognized that Elijah’s design was superior to other models. Eventually, news of the invention spread, and others tried to imitate Elijah’s invention, but the engineers knew the difference. They always asked for “the real McCoy.”

I hope and pray that my son will grow up to have Elijah’s strength and determination. And I hope and pray that children of color will one day grow up in a world where opportunities abound despite their skin shade. And I hope and pray that all children will one day live in a world where race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or any other criteria will no longer be a motive for rejection or suspicion. So maybe I better hope and pray that a new Elijah come up with a lubricating cup large enough to oil away all the prejudices that keep us grinding against each other. Only then will the screaming, clattering, and shuddering stop.