Kwesi Sipho Umoja, EE’67, says that Dr. Martin Luther King’s death had a profound effect on his perception of tomorrow. Umoja, one of only 19 African-Americans on the S&T campus when he was in school, would go on to start the first black-owned and operated national radio network, National Black Network, in 1971.
“While I was in the streets I made the decision that I was going to leave my job as an electrical engineer at Colgate-Palmolive and go to work ‘finding solutions,’” says Umoja, who was known as Eugene Jackson as a student. Umoja would also go on to serve as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Broadcasters and founder of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. In 1994, he helped launch the World African Network Cable System, which distributed news by satellite to 125 African American-focused stations in the United States.
Share This Story
Spark a Memory?
Share your story! Fill out the form below to share your fondest memory or anecdote of S&T. If you'd prefer not typing, you can also share by phone at 833-646-3715 (833-Miner150).
Surveying the future of mining
Karl F. Hasselmann, who graduated in 1925 with a degree in mining engineering, was oil prospecting in Europe when he…
Alyssa Purdy and Ryon Owings
Alyssa Purdy and Ryon Owings met during Opening Week in August 2014. Both lived in TJ Hall’s north tower –…
Leading Peru’s higher education
After earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from S&T in 1980, Mariana Rodriguez returned to her native Peru to…
John and Kristie (Capps) Gibson
After a basketball game in February 1973, John Gibson and a friend went to a party at TJ Hall where…
Builders of the bomb
The U.S. government’s Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the first nuclear weapons, was a massive but highly…
Kathy (Stone) and Bob Phillips
Kathy (Stone) and Bob Phillips were both living in TJ Hall’s North Tower when they met in August 1986 while…