Ridgefield Allies

Today in “Hidden” History is a daily listing of important but little-known events illustrating the range of innovators, contributors, or incidents excluded from formal history lessons or common knowledge. Hidden history is intended not as an exhaustive review, but merely as an illustration of how popular narratives "hide" many matters of fundamental importance. Bookmark this page and check daily to quickly expand your knowledge. Suggest entries for Today in “Hidden” History by clicking the Contact Us link. Entries for May 13:

Date	Type	Event
1925		Carolyn Robertson Payton, Ed.D. is born. Dr. Payton was a pioneer in black women’s leadership within the American Psychological Association and psychology. She was appointed Director of the United States Peace Corps in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter, the first female and the first African American to be Peace Corps Director. Learn more.
1950		American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University, William Manning Marable is born. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He authored several texts and was active in progressive political causes. At the time of his death, Professor Marable had completed a biography of human rights activist Malcolm X titled Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011), for which he won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History. Learn more.
1951		Activist, community leader, and the first African American and first woman mayor of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sharon Sayles Belton is born in St. Paul, MN. For most of her life she has fought for racial equality, women, family and child care issues, youth development and neighborhood development. In 1978 Belton co-founded the Harriet Tubman Shelter for Battered Women in Minneapolis. Learn more.
1960		Six years after Brown v. Board of Education, South Carolina’s legislature passed a bill to preserve school segregation and stall Black citizens’ attempts to integrate public schools using the authority of federal courts. On the last day of the 1960 legislative session, South Carolina lawmakers voted for a bill that, on its face, repealed language that declared the state would provide funding to “racially segregated schools only.” However, as local media accurately reported, the legislation was a “maneuver to thwart integration by the fiction of seeming to give in a little to it.” The bill did nothing to change another state law that mandated the closure of any school for white students that admitted a Black student. The bill also left in place provisions requiring racial segregation on school buses and in cafeterias. South Carolina schools would remain wholly segregated until September 1963, when eleven African American students desegregated Charleston County’s white schools, making South Carolina the last state to desegregate its public school system. Learn more.