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 July 08:
| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1860 |  More than 50 years after Congress banned the importation of enslaved Africans into the U.S., the slave ship Clotilde arrives in Mobile, Alabama, carrying more than 100 enslaved people from West Africa. Captain William Foster commanded the boat, working for Timothy Meaher, a white Mobile shipyard owner who built the Clotilde. The smuggled Africans were subsequently distributed as enslaved property amongst the group of white men who had financed the voyage. Mr. Meaher kept more than 30 of the Africans on Magazine Point, his property north of Mobile, Alabama. In 1865, after the Civil War ended and slavery was widely abolished, the Clotilde survivors once held by Mr. Meaher were free—but still trapped in a foreign land far from their home. They settled along the outskirts of Mr. Meaher’s property, at a site that came to be known as “Africatown,” and developed a community modeled after the traditions and government they had been forced to leave behind. Well into the 1950s, descendants of the Clotilde passengers living in Africatown maintained a distinct language and unique community of survival. Today, many descendants of the Africans trafficked on the Clotilde continue to live in northern Mobile, Alabama, and in December 2012, the National Park Service added the Africatown Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places. Learn more. | |
| 1876 |  The Hamburg Massacre (or Red Shirt Massacre) begins in the town of Hamburg, South Carolina, the first in a series of violent terrorist actions planned and carried out by white Democrats in majority-black Republican districts across South Carolina in the lead up to the last election season of the Reconstruction Era, with the goal of suppressing black Americans' civil rights and voting rights and disrupting Republican meetings, through actual and threatened violence.
Beginning with a dispute over free passage on a public road, the massacre was rooted in racial hatred and political motives. A court hearing attracted armed white "rifle clubs," colloquially called the "Red Shirts". Desiring to regain control of state governments and eradicate the civil rights of black Americans, over 100 white men attacked about 30 black servicemen of the National Guard at the armory, killing two as they tried to leave that night. Later that night, the Red Shirts tortured and murdered four of the militia while holding them as prisoners, and wounded several others. In total, the events in Hamburg resulted in the death of one white man and six black men with several more blacks being wounded. Although 94 white men were indicted for murder by a coroner's jury, none were prosecuted.
The events were a catalyst in the overarching violence in the volatile 1876 election campaign. There were other episodes of violence in the months before the election, including an estimated 100 blacks killed during several days in Ellenton, South Carolina, also in Aiken County. The Southern Democrats succeeded in "redeeming" the state government and electing Wade Hampton III as governor. During the remainder of the century, they passed laws to establish single-party white rule, impose legal segregation and "Jim Crow," and disenfranchise blacks with a new state constitution adopted in 1895. This exclusion of blacks from the political system was effectively maintained into the late 1960s. Learn more. | |
| 1914 |  Sublime jazz and pop singer and premier swing era bandleader William Clarence “Billy” Eckstine is born. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. His recording of "I Apologize" (MGM, 1948) was given the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. The New York Times described him as an "influential band leader" whose "suave bass-baritone" and "full-throated, sugary approach to popular songs inspired singers like Earl Coleman, Johnny Hartman, Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock and Lou Rawls." Dizzy Gillespie, in reflecting on the Eckstine band in his 1979 autobiography To Be or Not to Bop, gives this perspective: "There was no band that sounded like Billy Eckstine's. Our attack was strong, and we were playing bebop, the modern style. No other band like this one existed in the world." Eckstine’s highly successful solo career was adversely impacted after he was the subject of a three-page profile in the 25 April 1950 issue of LIFE magazine. One photograph published in LIFE showed Eckstine with a group of white female admirers, one of whom had her hand on his shoulder and her head on his chest while she laughed. The photograph was considered so controversial that an editor at LIFE sought personal approval from Henry Luce, the magazine's publisher, who said it should be published. The publication of the image caused letters of protest to be written to the magazine, and singer Harry Belafonte subsequently said of the publication that "When that photo hit, in this national publication, it was if a barrier had been broken". The controversy that resulted from the photograph had a seminal effect on the trajectory of Eckstine's career. Tony Bennett would recall that "It changed everything...Before that, he had a tremendous following...and it just offended the white community", a sentiment shared by pianist Billy Taylor who said that the "coverage and that picture just slammed the door shut for him". Learn more. | |
| 1943 |  Faye Wattleton (a/k/a Alyce Faye Wattleton), American reproductive rights activist who was the first African American and the youngest president ever elected of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the first woman since Margaret Sangerto hold the position, is born. She is currently Co-Founder & Director at EeroQ, a quantum computing company. She is best known for her contributions to family planning and reproductive health, as well as the pro-choice movement. Learn more. |
Please follow and like us:
