learning of an Afro-Surinamese-Dutch-American inventor

  While researching a presentation on Suriname for my Turkish class, I came across "Jan Ernst Matzeliger" as a significant person of Suriname descent. But I'd never heard of him, even though he was important in the history of both the places I grew up.  

 He was the sort of person who apparently thrived on overcoming obstacles. As the son of a Dutch engineer and a Suriname slave, he eventually left Suriname to travel the world and then settle in America where he invented an 'uninventable' machine, the shoe-lasting machine.  His idea was so unbelievable and complex that a person actually came from the Patent Office to make sure it really worked.  

 By most measures, he would be considered one of the most important African-American inventors in history; by birth, he was Afro-Surinamer and Dutch; but he became a naturalized US citizen.  He was featured on a US stamp in 1991.  Read more about him here.