Henry Johnson Jr

Henry Johnson Jr 🌍: I uncover the stories they left out.
🛫: Truth-Telling | Travel | Culture He is currently the CEO of Ethno Records.

Henry Johnson Jr is a Liberian-American travel influencer, entrepreneur, artist, author, social activist and filmmaker. He graduated from Colorado Film School (The top 25th film school in the world) and the University of Colorado Denver. In 2017, his short Thai film "Mother's Home" won Best Thai Short and Best Actor awards.

🚛 The Truck Still Runs.But do you know who made that engine possible?Before Teslas.Before hybrids.Before your Uber drive...
08/03/2025

🚛 The Truck Still Runs.

But do you know who made that engine possible?

Before Teslas.
Before hybrids.
Before your Uber driver pulled up with three chargers and no brakes…

There was Clessie Lyle Cummins —
A high school dropout who turned diesel engines into legends.

But let’s get this straight:

🛠️ Clessie didn’t do it alone.

Because behind every roaring diesel engine…
Were brilliant Black engineers and mechanics—
Working in the shadows. Left out of the credits.
But building power that moved the world.

Clessie wasn’t your average boss.

While other companies were locking doors…
He was opening them.

🗝️ He hired Black talent when others wouldn’t.
🧠 He respected brilliance over bias.
⚙️ And together, they refined diesel engines so efficient, it changed everything.

Freight trains.
Military trucks.
Submarines.
Even a diesel-powered car that drove across the U.S. on $1.38 worth of fuel.

Yes — $1.38.
While y’all crying at the Chevron pump. 😭

But history left out the real story:

📍 How many Black mechanics made the machines run… but never got mentioned?

📍 How many names were lost while others took the spotlight?

📍 And how many young geniuses would dream bigger if they knew the truth under the hood?

⸻

Clessie didn’t just build diesel dominance.
He built dignity.
And helped open lanes — literally and socially.

So today, when your bus shows up…
When your truck starts without protest…
When your generator kicks in during a storm…

👏🏾 Remember the minds behind it.

📣 Send this to a trucker.
Text it to your mechanic uncle.
Drop it in your gearhead group chat.

And feel free to follow the page if you want more history that moves the world — even if school never taught it. 💡










08/03/2025

🌎✈️ First Time in El Salvador? Don’t Go Until You Know THIS! 🇸🇻😳.

🩺 Before doctors had cameras… there was a Black man who saw inside the human body with nothing but courage and a scope.T...
08/03/2025

🩺 Before doctors had cameras… there was a Black man who saw inside the human body with nothing but courage and a scope.

They don’t teach you his name.
But every time a doctor looks into your stomach — without cutting you open — he’s there.

📍His name was Dr. Leonidas Berry.

Born in 1902, when Black physicians were barred from most hospitals, Berry wasn’t just fighting for his career…

He was building the future of medicine.

🔬 He helped design and refine one of the earliest gastroscopes — a tool that let doctors see inside the stomach and digestive tract without surgery.

Ulcers. Tumors. Bleeding.
All once invisible.
Until Berry said:

“We’re going in — and we’re doing it with vision.”

Before his invention?
Doctors were guessing.

After Berry?
They had eyes inside the human body.

🎓 He didn’t just break barriers — he rewrote them:
• First Black staff member at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago.
• Medical researcher. Innovator. Mentor.
• Leader in the fight for Black inclusion in medicine.

And still… most never hear his name.

📢 They remember the tools.
But forget the hands that shaped them.

So let’s fix that.

This isn’t just about a scope.
This is about visibility —
In hospitals.
In classrooms.
In history itself.

💬 How many more breakthroughs are hiding inside students who never see themselves in the books?

🧠 How many lives were saved by what Berry built?

And how many minds would light up… if they knew who started it all?

📌 If this moved you, pass it to someone who works in medicine, dreams of med school, or believes in healing.

Drop it in a group chat. Text it to a friend.
Not for clout — but to keep the legacy alive. 🖤

And feel free to follow the page if you want more truths like this — told the way they should’ve been taught.






08/03/2025

You cannot fix what you refuse to see. To love a counttry is to be willing to see.

🍞💭 Quick question:When’s the last time you thought about the genius behind your sandwich?No seriously — who do you think...
08/03/2025

🍞💭 Quick question:
When’s the last time you thought about the genius behind your sandwich?

No seriously — who do you think made that soft, perfectly sliced, evenly textured bread possible?

Because before bread came wrapped in plastic and lined up in neat little slices…
There was a Brotha quietly revolutionizing the bakery world.

Meet Joseph Lee — the man who literally automated the bread game. 🙌🏾👨🏾‍🍳

In the late 1800s, most bread was kneaded by hand.
And let’s be honest — it was messy, inconsistent, and labor-intensive.

But Joseph?

This brotha said, “There’s got to be a better way.”

So he invented the automatic bread-kneading machine — and it changed EVERYTHING.

Restaurants and bakeries across the U.S. began adopting it.

Why? Because it saved time, reduced waste, and made the dough more uniform — which meant better bread.

But he didn’t stop there.

He looked at all the crumbs being thrown out after slicing or trimming bread…

And he said: “Y’all wasting flavor.” 😂

So he created the automatic bread crumber — a machine that collected and recycled crumbs for other uses.
That means Joseph was out here reducing food waste before it was cool. ♻️

In other words:
Before AI.
Before smart kitchens.
Before your air fryer flexed on your grandma’s oven…

There was Joseph Lee — inventing, streamlining, and elevating how the world bakes.

🧠 Think about this:

🥖 How many sandwiches, French toasts, and croutons wouldn’t exist without efficient bread production?

🥯 How many kitchens adopted tech Joseph dreamed up — without ever teaching his name in school?

🥪 And how many more Black inventors are out there right now, reshaping everyday life while being written out of history?

Joseph Lee didn’t just bake.
He built.
He engineered.
He innovated in a time where his skin color alone was enough to deny him credit, capital, or recognition.

But guess what?

The proof rose like yeast. And today — his legacy feeds the world.

📣 Send this to your foodie cousin.
Drop it in the group chat with the chef in the family. Or let your favorite sandwich shop know who really laid the foundation for that brioche bun.

And feel free to follow the page for more untold Black history and real-world inspiration. ✊🏾💥












How do you build dreams… and patent them?How do you design wonder — not once, but over a hundred times?And how do we liv...
08/02/2025

How do you build dreams… and patent them?

How do you design wonder — not once, but over a hundred times?

And how do we live in a world where kids know Mickey Mouse…
…but not the Black man who helped bring him to life — in ways Walt never could’ve imagined?

Meet Lanny Smoot — the real-life wizard behind your favorite childhood magic. 🧙🏾‍♂️🎩

🛠️💡 With 100+ patents under his belt — more than any Disney Imagineer in history — Lanny didn’t just make theme parks fun…

He reinvented what fun could feel like.

Ever seen a light that follows you like a ghost?
That’s Lanny.

🎤 Ever watched a live show where characters interact with you like they’re reading your mind?
Lanny again.

🏰 Ever stepped into a Disney ride and felt like the walls were alive?
That’s his brain at work.

He didn’t just build rides —
He built realities. Immersive, magical, unforgettable experiences that shape childhood memories for millions.

But here’s the wild part:

Most people have never heard his name.

Why?

Because the world rarely spotlights the Black minds behind the magic.
They give you the mouse ears… but leave out the master engineer.

But this man — raised in Brooklyn, born curious, and wired to imagine — is not just a Disney legend.

He’s a world changer.

And let’s talk about those patents, because this ain’t your average paperwork.

He’s designed cutting-edge tech for:
• Holograms that move in real time
• Live-action gaming environments
• Magic wands that actually work
• Stage illusions that redefine theatre
• Next-gen VR that makes you feel what you see

Lanny Smoot is literally the reason Disney feels different than anywhere else on Earth. 🪄

He made imagination feel real — and proved that brilliance has no color, only courage.

So let me ask you:

📱 How many childhoods has he shaped?
🎭 How many inventions do you use or experience — without ever knowing who created them?
🧠 And how many other Lanny Smoots are out there — hidden in labs, libraries, and underfunded schools — waiting to be believed in?

It’s time we put names on the magic.

📣 Drop this in a group chat.
Send it to your cousin who loves Disney or your friend who’s raising a future engineer.
Let the young dreamers know — we build fantasy too.

And feel free to follow the page for more untold history and real-world travel stories. 🌍✨













📂💡 Ever wonder who was organizing entire movements before email, Dropbox, or Google Docs?Who kept the receipts before th...
08/02/2025

📂💡 Ever wonder who was organizing entire movements before email, Dropbox, or Google Docs?

Who kept the receipts before the cloud?
Who managed the documents before digital drives?

Let me introduce you to a woman whose name should be on every file cabinet, database system, and records archive in the country…

📎 Richetta Randolph Wallace.

You probably never heard of her — and that’s the problem.

This brilliant Black woman was the backbone of one of the most powerful social justice movements in U.S. history.

She wasn’t just typing memos or answering phones.
She was designing systems — organizing, managing, tracking, preserving, and protecting generations of critical information.

🧠 Imagine being the first administrative architect of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)…

…handling sensitive letters from W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and even early legal cases that would one day lead to Brown v. Board of Education.

And get this — she was the first Black woman ever hired by the NAACP.

Richetta didn’t just manage paper.
She managed the movement. 🏛️✊🏾

She built what we now call document management systems — by hand.
Filing. Cross-referencing. Indexing. Archiving.
All without AI, spreadsheets, or automation.

She literally created order out of chaos — so future generations could find truth, justice, and strategy in every folder.

Now ask yourself…

🗂️ How many movements, memories, and milestones would’ve been lost — if not for one woman with a vision for structure?

They hid her in the footnotes.
But today, we put her in bold. 💥

📣 Drop this in your friend’s inbox. Slide it to your cousin who works in IT or admin.
Let your sis who runs HR or records get inspired.
Let this truth travel. And feel free to follow the page for more hidden gems in Black history and global travel storytelling.

God bless. 🖤🌍



08/02/2025

If we can’t face our past, we’ll keep repeating it in the present.

🫀💡 What if the next medical revolution didn’t come from a billion-dollar lab in Silicon Valley……but from a young Cameroo...
08/02/2025

🫀💡 What if the next medical revolution didn’t come from a billion-dollar lab in Silicon Valley…

…but from a young Cameroonian engineer who built something so powerful, it’s saving lives with just a fingertip?

Meet Arthur Zang — the genius behind the CardioPad.

Not a laptop.
Not a phone.

A medical tablet that lets rural patients in Africa get heart tests done in their villages — and then sends the results straight to heart specialists in the city. No travel. No delay. No excuses.

Now pause.

Do you know what it used to be like for heart patients in remote areas of Cameroon?

⛑️ Walk miles to the nearest clinic
😩 Wait weeks for appointments
🚐 Travel again to the capital just to see a cardiologist — if there even was one

Meanwhile, your heart’s over there doing the electric slide into cardiac arrest 💃🏾🫠

Arthur Zang looked at this whole mess and said:
“Yeah… nah. We can fix this.”

So he designed the CardioPad at just 24 years old.
Twenty. Four.

While most of us were still figuring out how to not microwave metal.

Oh — and get this: he didn’t have the money, so he taught himself how to build the software, the electronics, and the medical interface…

…using YouTube tutorials and borrowed textbooks.
📚👨🏿‍💻📱

The result?
A portable tablet that performs ECGs (electrocardiograms), analyzes results, and connects local clinics to top cardiologists across Cameroon — saving thousands of lives in communities that used to be forgotten.

And he did all this while dealing with lack of funding, skepticism, and the usual “But Africa doesn’t invent anything” crowd. 🙄

Now, just imagine if every schoolkid in the West was taught about Arthur Zang the way they are taught about Steve Jobs…

Imagine how many Black kids would be out here building tech that heals instead of just dancing on TikTok 🕺🏿💔📉

So the next time someone says,
“Africa needs saving…”

Tell them — sometimes, it’s Africa doing the saving. 💥

✊🏿 Drop this in your cousin’s inbox.
📲 Send it to your health-conscious auntie.
💬 Let this sit in that one group chat that loves ignoring Black brilliance.

And please — feel free to follow the page for more history they never taught you and global travel stories that show the truth of who we are.

God bless. 🙏🏿🌍











👟💥 Ever worn shoes that didn’t cost your whole paycheck?Then you might wanna thank a Black man from Suriname who changed...
08/01/2025

👟💥 Ever worn shoes that didn’t cost your whole paycheck?

Then you might wanna thank a Black man from Suriname who changed the entire shoe industry… with ZERO credit.

But let’s back up.

👀 Have you ever stood in a store, staring at 67 shoe options, wondering how shoes became so mass-produced, so affordable… and so fast?

Before factories cranked out sneakers like candy, shoes were made one-by-one.
And the hardest part? “Lasting” — the process of shaping and attaching the upper part of the shoe to the sole.

It was slow. Manual. Expensive.
Like, “only rich people had more than one pair” expensive.

Then came Jan Ernst Matzeliger.
Half Dutch, half Black — born in Suriname, moved to Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Couldn’t even speak English at first.

But what he could do?
🧠 Invent like a genius.
🛠️ Tinker like a man on a mission.
👟 Change the shoe game forever.

He created the Shoe Lasting Machine — and it was so good, the factories lost their minds. 😳

Before Jan? One person could finish 50 shoes a day.
After Jan? That number shot up to 150 to 700. PER DAY.

👞💰 Translation:
Cheaper shoes. Faster production.
More folks walking in style… even if their wallet was struggling.

But guess what happened next?

🧍🏽‍♂️ He got no spotlight.
🧍🏽‍♂️ No parade.
🧍🏽‍♂️ Barely made the history books.
🧍🏽‍♂️ And he DIED of tuberculosis at just 36 — before the world could fully honor what he gave it.

They used his machine.
They made millions.
They stepped over his memory — wearing shoes he made possible.

🤦🏽‍♂️ And you know those people who scream,

“Nobody cares about the past!”

Tell them this:
We can’t create the future without knowing the past.

That same past is why your Air Jordans didn’t cost $800. 😅

📲 Drop this in your best friend’s inbox.
Send it to your cousin.
That history-loving sis.
Post it in the group chat.
Let it spread.

Because they never told you about Jan —
but now you know. And that changes everything.

And please — feel free to follow the page for more powerful stories like this one.
History + travel = truth in motion.
God bless.


🧠 Ever used caller ID to dodge a call, or relied on Wi-Fi to stream your favorite show—without ever knowing the Black wo...
08/01/2025

🧠 Ever used caller ID to dodge a call, or relied on Wi-Fi to stream your favorite show—without ever knowing the Black woman who helped make it all possible?

🎓 Meet Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson — the first Black woman to earn a PhD from MIT in ANY field. Not just in her department. Not just in physics. The entire institute. Let that sink in.

She didn’t just crack the glass ceiling — she walked through it carrying an atomic microscope. 🔬💥

📞 While working at Bell Labs, Shirley’s research laid the foundation for:

• Caller ID (so you could avoid your ex 😅)
• Call waiting (for that one auntie who talks for 3 hours)

• Fiber optic cables (literally the backbone of your internet)

• And even touch-tone phones. Yes, that “beep beep boop” was her world.

And guess what?

🧪 She did all this while battling racism and sexism at one of the top scientific labs in the world — basically playing intellectual dodgeball in a place where being Black and brilliant made folks more uncomfortable than facts at a political rally. 🇺🇸😅

👩🏾‍🔬 But she didn’t stop there. Dr. Jackson later became the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, turning it into one of the most research-advanced schools in the nation.

She’s also served on Obama’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Yup, while some folks were busy doubting women in STEM — she was advising the White House. 🏛️

📸 You use her inventions every single day, but they never taught you her name.

Why?

Because history too often hides the Black women who built the blueprint.

📲 Send this to your cousin, friend, or anyone using a phone today. They deserve to know who helped make it possible.

And if you love learning the truth they never taught us — feel free to follow the page.
Because this is the education we all deserved. 🙌🏾🖤






08/01/2025

Healing starts when honesty becomes more sacred than pride.

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Henry Johnson Jr is a Liberian-born American 🇺🇲️🇱🇷Freelance Writer, Musician, Actor, Filmmaker, World Traveler, Humanitarian, Social Activist, and Producer; he's also a graduate of the Colorado Film School and the University of Denver, Colorado (CU). He's the writer of two well-published books, Liberian Son Vol One and Two. Henry Johnson Jr grew up in Aurora, Colorado, and spend most of his life there, and has traveled the world, from Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Germany, Belgium, Japan, The Philippines, Hong Kong, and to Thailand. In early 2013 he founded 1847 Films to help promote Liberia's Film Industry. In 2014, he graduated (Colorado Film School) CFS with an Associate Degree in General Studies of the Arts.

Colorado Film School is one of the top 25th Film Schools in the United States and the world. In early 2017, he founded Ethno Records, an international record and film production company. On May 13th, 2017, he graduated from the University of Colorado Denver with honors (Cum Laude), with a Bachelor's Degree in Communications and a minor in Political Science. In November of 2017, a short Thai Film (Mother's Home) that he acted in won the best Thai and Japanese Short and also earned him an award for BEST ACTOR. While in Thailand, he was invited to the Thai parliament to have a sit-in on Thai Tourism and Film Industry. For more info, please contact HJ. 🇺🇲️🇱🇷️️