'Black Facts' Flash On LinkNYC Kiosks For Juneteenth

BED-STUY, NY — Did you know Calendly was founded and owned by a Black man? Or that a Black Brooklynite created "lingo," the coding language responsible for many animations and games?

Or, say, that the first Black woman to earn an engineering PHD at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was a Bed-Stuy native?

"It's amazing what you can find if you look," said Ken Granderson, a Brooklyn-native and founder of Blackfacts.com, a Black history search engine.

Facts like these roll off Granderson's tongue with ease — and now, for the second time this year, they flash on 3,600 LinkNYC kiosk screens across New York City.

New Yorkers may have already noticed their normal kiosk train times have been joined by Juneteenth facts, like that Juneteenth was first celebrated in 1866 in Texas, or that early celebrations were a political rallying point for newly freed African Americans.

About 10 facts have rotated on the kiosks, many around Central Brooklyn, since the beginning of June, where they will stay through Monday's holiday. In February, Granderson's facts played on LinkNYC kiosks for Black History Month.

"Our partnership [with BlackFacts] is a key educational resource for New Yorkers... and helps to ensure New York City's telecommunications infrastructure reflects and speaks directly to the community members its meant to serve,” said LinkNYC's Director of External Affairs Nicole Robinson-Etienne.

Granderson himself didn't know what Juneteenth was until he studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1980s — his schoolmates from Texas first introduced him to the holiday. To Granderson, the Juneteenth kiosks are a marker of cultural progress and a great example of technology's power to scale learning.

"Nothing's perfect, no [effort] is perfect," Granderson said. "But if you're moving in the right direction...let's be happy about that, let's encourage it."

At face value, the Juneteenth facts aren't much more than a passing thought for pedestrians — which is why Granderson tried to keep the fact succinct and digestible.

But these small, passing moments can spark larger thought and bring Black history closer to all Brooklynites, Granderson said.

"None of us can choose our family, our culture, or ethnicity — and these have a lot to do with the ways we see the world," Granderson said. "Making people aware chips away at the unconscious or conscious walls we make that separate us as humans."

Beyond the oft-told histories of Black success, simple facts told in local settings can also help break strongly-held stereotypes about success — like the story of a Black tech executive or a Black female legacy at Harvard Medical School.

"I like to demystify those things," Granderson said. "I imagine that some of these initial ideas can stick in people's brains...plant the seed of curiosity."

Similarly, Granderson sees technology is a democratizing force in society — when it's accessible. The Link kiosks are, then, a perfect home for the facts given they provide New Yorkers with free WiFi, calling and charging ports.

"My personal mission has been to try and help people see that you can use technology for things other than cat videos," Granderson offered as an example —though he does love cats. "You can learn so much."

The Juneteenth rollout will likely not be the last — Granderson said he would love to see a Women's History Month campaign, for example.