High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Walter Lincoln Hawkins (March 21, 1911 – August 20, 1992) was an African-American scientist and inventor who, while working at Bell Laboratories in the 1940s, helped to make universal telephone service possible. Hawkins developed a plastic to insulate telephone wires — a new material that was lightweight, durable, and less expensive than the lead sheathing used at the time.