How the history of Blackness on the internet was erased

When New York University media and culture professor Charlton McIlwain was doing research for his latest book, “Black Software,” he found an encyclopedia about Black inventors, written by Black authors. And it actually said that there wasn’t evidence Black people had made tangible contributions to the development of the internet. But McIlwain says that written history ignores decades of Black culture online, including AfroNet, an invite-only bulletin board in the late ’80s, that became a haven for Black people to connect and create. Those Black voices played a key role in the online communities that came after. He tells Molly a little more about what he found in that encyclopedia.