{"id":20879,"date":"2020-02-17T11:53:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T16:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.filtersfast.com\/blog\/?p=20879"},"modified":"2020-02-18T08:20:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T13:20:44","slug":"black-history-month-rufus-stokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.filtersfast.com\/blog\/black-history-month-rufus-stokes\/","title":{"rendered":"Black History Month: Rufus Stokes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of Black History Month, we’ve been sharing the stories and contributions of two amazing Black inventors that changed the filtration industry. Missed the first one? Check out our blog on Andrew F. Hilyer here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rufus Stokes was born and raised in Alabama. Just before graduating high school he enlisted in the US Army. While he was in the army, he attended a technical school where he received auto mechanic training, the skills he learned while in school helped him find work in Missouri and Illinois following his honorable discharge (he was decorated with an American Defense Service Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and Good Conduct Medal).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the late 1940s, he worked as an orderly in the Tuberculosis Sanitarium at the Chicago Veterans Administration Hospital. He witnessed first-hand the negative health effects of pollution. After two years at the Sanitarium, Stokes was hired as a machinist at an incinerator manufacturing company called Brule, Inc. in Chicago. He quickly learned the process of combustion and applied his technical and mechanical training to refining and designing new incinerators. He was never credited for his work which prompted him to leave the company and pursue his own work.<\/p>\n

Inspired by his time working at the Sanitarium and Brule Inc., he became interested in air pollution that was being emitted by companies and wanted to figure out different ways to purify breathing air. In the late 1960s, Dr. Stokes invented the “Clean Air Machine”: an air-purification device that reduced the gas and ash emissions of furnaces and power plant smokestack emissions.<\/p>\n

The core of Dr. Stokes’ technology was his unique utilization of what he described as “the three Ts”:<\/p>\n