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 June 20:

Date	Type	Event
1894		Chemist Lloyd Augustus Hall, who contributed to the science of food preservation, is born in Elgin, IL. By the end of his career, Hall had amassed 59 United States patents, and a number of his inventions were also patented in other countries. Hall's grandmother came to Illinois using the "Underground Railroad" at the age of sixteen. His grandfather came to Chicago in 1837 and was one of the founders of the Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church. Hall earned a B.S. in pharmaceutical chemistry from Northwestern University and a Master's degree at the University of Chicago. After leaving university, Hall was hired by the Western Electric Company after a phone interview. The company refused to hire Hall after they discovered he was Black. Hall then went to work as a chemist for the Department of Health in Chicago followed by a job as chief chemist with the John Morrell Company. During World War I, Hall served with the United States Ordnance Department where he was promoted to Chief Inspector of Powder and Explosives. In 2004, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work. Following the war, Hall worked as chief chemist for the Boyer Chemical Laboratory. Following this, Hall became President and Chemical director for Chemical Products Corporation's consulting laboratory. In 1925, Hall took a position with Griffith Laboratories where he remained for 34 years. Learn more.
1940		NAACP leader Elbert Williams is abducted from his home in Brownsville, Tennessee, by a group of white men led by the local sheriff and the night marshal. Three days later, Mr. Williams’s lifeless and brutalized body was found in the nearby Hatchie River. He was 31 years old. Williams’s murder was a continuation of the white supremacist terrorism that had prevented African Americans — who, by 1940, made up 75% of the 19,000 people living in town — from voting in Brownsville since 1884. Despite investigations launched by local authorities, the Department of Justice, and the FBI, charges were never lodged against the well-known men responsible. According to one contemporary observer, the perpetrators of the abuses and murders “can be seen in Brownsville each day going about their work as though they had killed only a rabbit.” Learn more.
1943		The 1943 Detroit race riot starts in the evening, one of five race riots in the U.S. that summer; it followed riots in Beaumont, TX, Harlem, NY, Los Angeles, CA (the Zoot Suit Riot), and Mobile, AL. The Detroit riot would continue until suppressed by 6,000 federal troops on the morning of June 22. A total of 34 people were killed, 25 of them Black and most at the hands of the white police force, while 433 were wounded (75 percent of them Black), and property valued at $2 million ($30.4 million in 2020 US dollars) was destroyed. Most of the riot took place in the Black area of Paradise Valley, the poorest neighborhood of the city. White commissions of the time falsely attributed the cause of the riot to Black people and youths. A late 20th-century analysis of the rioters showed that the white rioters were younger and often unemployed (characteristics that the riot commissions had falsely attributed to Blacks, despite evidence in front of them). If working, the whites often held semi-skilled or skilled positions. Whites traveled long distances across the city to join the first stage of the riot near the bridge to Belle Isle Park, and later some traveled in armed groups explicitly to attack the Black neighborhood in Paradise Valley. The Black participants were often older, established city residents, who in many cases had lived in the city for more than a decade. Many were married working men and were defending their homes and neighborhood against police and white rioters. Learn more.