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 September 04:
| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1816 |  The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized as the first independent black denomination in the United States. Learn more. | |
| 1848 |  Prolific African American inventor and patent draftsman Lewis Howard Latimer is born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to Rebecca and George Latimer who had escaped from slavery six years before. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision required that former enslaved individuals prove they had the consent of their slaveholder in order to legally become free, Lewis’s parents decided that, for the family’s safety, Lewis's father should flee because he had nothing to prove he was free from enslavement. Lewis joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 15 on September 16, 1863. After receiving an honorable discharge on July 3, 1865, Lattimer was employed as an office boy with a patent law firm; by 1872 he risen to the position of head draftsman. In 1874, Latimer co-patented (with Charles M. Brown) an improved toilet system for railroad cars called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars (U.S. Patent 147,363). In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed Latimer to draft the necessary drawings required to receive a patent for Bell's telephone. In 1879, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was hired as assistant manager and draftsman for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company, a company owned by Hiram Maxim, a rival of Thomas A. Edison. While Latimer was there he invented a modification to the process for making carbon filaments which aimed to reduce breakages during the carbonization process. While in England on behalf of the Maxim light company he taught the entire process for making Maxim lights, including glassblowing in 9 months in order to get the factory up and running. In 1884, he was invited to work with Thomas Edison. Latimer later developed a forerunner of the air conditioner called "Apparatus for cooling and disinfecting". In 1894, Latimer pursued a patent on a safety elevator which prevented the riders from falling out and into the shaft. Lattimer wrote a book of poetry called Poems of Love and Life, a technical book, Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890), and various pieces for African-American journals. Latimer also played the violin and flute, painted portraits, and wrote plays. An early advocate of civil rights, Latimer wrote an 1895 statement about equality, security, and opportunity in connection with the National Conference of Colored Men. In later life, Latimer taught English and drafting courses to immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement in New York. Learn more.
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| 1875 |  Democrats attack Republicans and massacre local Black populations in Clinton and Vicksburg, Mississippi. In that era (and for decades before and after), the Republican Party was the vanguard of civil rights supporters while the Democratic Party was the vanguard of white supremacy. Republicans in Hinds County, Mississippi, held a barbecue and meeting in the town of Clinton that was attended by 3,000 people. Hoping to curb the risk of violent political conflict, Clinton authorities appointed special police and prohibited serving liquor. When the Republican speakers began making their political speeches in the afternoon, Democratic party representatives unexpectedly joined the meeting and requested speaking time. In the interest of keeping the peace, Republican officials agreed to accommodate Democrats' request to speak and arranged for a public discussion between Judge Amos R. Johnston, a Democratic candidate for state senate, and Captain H.T. Fisher, Republican editor of the Jackson Times. Both speakers were to be given an equal amount of speaking time, and Johnston spoke first. When Mr. Fisher's turn came, he expressed optimism that meetings between the parties could take place peacefully in the future -- but eight minutes into his address, an altercation erupted in the crowd. A gunfight between Black and white people in the audience rang out, as bystanders panicked and rushed to escape the danger. Within fifteen minutes, three white people and four Black people were dead, and six white people and twenty Black people were wounded. Though newspapers reported that the Black people who had fired weapons were acting in self-defense, many white observers were enraged by the Black show of force. That night, armed white men from Clinton and Vicksburg formed roving bands targeting Black men. By the next day, an estimated fifty Black people had been killed. Many more had been forced into the woods and swampland to avoid an attack, where they remained until the attack subsided. Learn more. | |
| 1908 | 
Richard Wright, author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction, is born. Wright’s most famous works are the groundbreaking and highly influential novels Black Boy and Native Son. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries suffering discrimination and violence. Literary critics believe his work helped change race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century. Learn more. |
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