Akil Gibbons directed and produced this AT&T and CNN series “Forces of Change” profiling the inventor of the modern microphone, a black man from the Jim Crow South Dr. James West, who led a Black Scientific Renaissance at Bell Labs - considered the most influential corporate laboratory in the world.

In the 1970s, compelled in part by the Civil Rights Movement, AT&T developed a pipeline of technical talent from underrepresented groups that fed into the Bell Labs system. These pioneers made tremendous advances that altered the course of history, now referred to as the “Black Scientific Renaissance.”