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Black Excellence Daily

Black History on Your Desk: Black Excellence Daily Comes to E-Ink

banner for black history on desk with e-ink

A figure worth knowing, before you pick up your phone

Black Excellence Daily now lives on e-ink. Every morning, a quiet screen on your desk shows one Black historical figure, a quote in their own words, and a line on who they were. No notifications, no feed, no scrolling.

Most of us meet histpry in fragments: a post between ads, a clip that autoplays, a fact we forget by lunch. E-ink works differently. It looks like paper, it glows only when light hits it, and it sits still. a quote on your desk at 7 a.m. is still there at 3 p.m., waiting for a second look and reaffirming your goals, priorities, and importance in life.

That pace suits Blakc history. Fannie Lou Hamer, Granville Woods, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o deserve more than a swipe. They deserve a day.

What you see each day

The screen changes at midnight in your timezone. Each day brings one of the 366 figures, one for every date on the calendar, including February 29. The collections spans the Civil Rights Movement, science, sports, music, literature, politics, and business, from the United States to Haiti, to across the African diaspora.

Each screen shows:

  • A quote in the figure’s oen words, sized automatically so even long passages fit cleanly
  • Their name and years, so you can place them in time at a glance.
  • A two-to-three-word description, like “Astrophysicist, science communicator” or “Voting rights activist.”

Some figures come with several quotes. On those days the screen rotates through them hourly, with a small “Quote 2 of 5” marker. Glance at it in the morning and again after lunch, and the same person will have new inspiration to channel.

Illistrations drawn from their lives

Illustrated days pair the quote with a scene in the style of a linocut print. Bold carved lines suit e-ink, which shows only a few shades of gray;soft images blue, while carved black-and-white shapes stay crisp. The medium also carries its own history: linocult was a favorite of Black printmakers like Elizabeth Catlett.

We illustrate moments from each life, not faces. A rooftop telescope under a full moon connects with Neil deGrasse Tyson, who studied the night sky from his Bronx apartment building. A trumpet with a Harmon mute represents Miles Davis and his signature sound. An eclipse over a Virginia forest marks the sign Nat Turner took in 1831.

Illustrations are being added throughout the year, starting with figures leading into Black History Month. On days without one, the screen shows a clean, text-only layout.

How to add it to your TRML

Black Excellence Daily is a free recipe in TRMNL’s plugin catalog. There’s no account to create and nothing to configure.

  1. Sign in to your TRMNL dashboard and open the recipe catalog.
  2. Search for “Black Excellence Daily” and click install.
  3. Add it to your playlist.

No TRMNL? Use the e-reader you already own

You don’t need ot buy a new device. TRMNL’s bring-your-own-device-program runs its dashboard, including Black Excellence Daily, on e-readers, tablets, and DIY screens. That old Kindle in a drawer can become a daily history display.

These setups use a TRMNL BYOD license, and TRMNL offers a free trial to start. Most Kindles, Kobos, and BOOX readers show 16 to 256 shades of gray, so the linocut illustrations look even richer there than on a standard TRMNL.

There’s good reason to dust off an old reader: Amazon ended store access for older Kindle models in May 2026. A retired e-reader makes an ideal daily display.

Four ways to keep Black Excellence close

Every figure on the screen comes from the Black Excellence Daily Perpetual Calendar & Journal. Choose the format that fits your day:

Celebrate more Black excellence

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