This image was never entirely accurate even when it was widely believed, but it was particularly far from the reality of Black American inventors, who typically worked without institutional support, without access to well-funded laboratories, and often without the legal and professional infrastructure that helped white inventors protect and commercialize their work.

Mary Kenner grew up knowing that invention was possible for people like her because she could see it in her own family.

Sidney Davidson had done it.

The tradition was real.

The question was what she would do with the thinking mind she had.

From childhood, she showed the characteristic trait of inventors everywhere: she noticed things that could be better.

She was curious about mechanisms and objects, about why specific designs existed and whether they could be improved.