Elijah McCoy revolutionized technology forever—from trains to the factory floor—by allowing steam engines to keep running without frequent manual intervention. In 1872, he invented a device that made steam engines infinitely more productive, but his peers refused to give him credit. They even tried passing off their own attempts, none of which worked as well—leading folks to say in frustration, “I want the Real McCoy!” Elijah was almost lost to history. But thankfully, his wife and a strong community of black activists in Detroit—and Andrew Moodie, a playwright in McCoy’s native Canada—swooped in to save his legacy. Today, the story of how Elijah McCoy became “The Real McCoy.”

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