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 March 25:
| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1924 |  Prolific neoclassical music composer Julia Amanda Perry is born in Lexington Kentucky. Her father, Dr. Abe Perry, was a doctor and amateur pianist, who once accompanied the tenor Roland Hayes on tour. Her mother, America Perry, encouraged her children’s musical endeavors; both Julia and her sisters studied violin from a young age, Julia switched to the piano after two years of violin. Perry graduated Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey with a bachelors and masters in music. She continued her musical training at the Julliard School of Music and she also spent summers at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Perry received two Guggenheim fellowships to study in Florence, Italy under the tutelage of Lugia Dallapiccola and in Paris, France with Nadia Boulanger. Her works are performed by major orchestras and she won awards and accolades from the National Association of Negro Musicians, the Boulanger Grand Prix, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters, among others. During her life, Perry completed 12 symphonies, two concertos, and three operas, in addition to numerous smaller pieces. Learn more. | |
| 1931 |  In a gross miscarriage of justice typical of that era and especially in that region, the “Scottsboro Boys” — nine African American teenagers, ages 12-18 — are falsely accused, arrested, and charged with raping two white women. The arrests set off a cascading set of injustices. It is commonly cited as an example of a miscarriage of justice in the United States legal system. The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama, in three rushed trials, in which the defendants received poor legal representation. All but 13-year-old Roy Wright were convicted of rape and sentenced to death (the common sentence in Alabama at the time for black men convicted of raping white women), even though there was no medical evidence to suggest that they had committed such a crime. The cases were twice appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which led to landmark decisions on the conduct of trials. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), it ordered new trials. During the retrials, one of the alleged victims admitted to fabricating the rape story and asserted that none of the Scottsboro Boys touched either of the white women. The jury found the defendants guilty, but the judge set aside the verdict and granted a new trial. The judge was replaced and the case tried under a judge who ruled frequently against the defense, and the third jury returned a guilty verdict. The case was sent to the US Supreme Court on appeal. It ruled that African-Americans had to be included on juries, and ordered retrials. Charges were finally dropped for four of the nine defendants. Sentences for the rest ranged from 75 years to death. All but two served prison sentences; all were released or escaped by 1946. Two escaped, were later charged with other crimes, convicted, and sent back to prison. Learn more. | |
| 1965 |  Day 5 of the 5-day, 54-mile Selma to Montgomery March, taking place March 21-25. This third and final Selma voting rights march followed the earlier March 7, “Bloody Sunday” march, and the March 9, “Turnaround Tuesday” march. On Thursday, March 25, 25,000 people marched from the previous night campsite at the Town of St. Jude complex on the outskirts of Montgomery to the steps of the State Capitol Building in Montgomery where King delivered the speech "How Long, Not Long". He said: “The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. ... I know you are asking today, How long will it take? I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long.” After delivering the speech, King and the marchers approached the entrance to the capitol with a petition for Governor Wallace. A line of state troopers blocked the door. One announced that the governor was not in. Undeterred, the marchers remained at the entrance until one of Wallace's secretaries appeared and took the petition. The three Selma to Montgomery marches had a powerful effect in Washington. After witnessing the police violent attacks on the “Bloody Sunday” marchers, President Johnson presented a voting rights bill to a joint session of Congress in a televised speech on March 15. It was considered to be a watershed moment for the civil rights movement. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965, and prohibited most of the unfair practices used to prevent blacks from registering to vote, and provided for federal registrars to go to Alabama and other states with a history of voting-related discrimination to ensure that the law was implemented by overseeing registration and elections. | |
| 1965 |  Civil rights ally and activist Viola Liuzzo is martyred by the Ku Klux Klan(KKK). Liuzzo, a 39-year old mother of five and later-in-life college student, heeded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1965 call and traveled from Detroit, Michigan, to Selma, Alabama, in the wake of the Bloody Sunday attempt to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. While returning from shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport after the third Selma to Montgomery march, she was shot and killed from a pursuing car containing KKK members Collie Wilkins, William Eaton, Eugene Thomas, and Gary Thomas Rowe, the latter of whom was actually an undercover informant working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Rowe testified that Wilkins had fired two shots into Liuzzo on the order of Thomas, and was placed in the witness protection program by the FBI. To deflect attention from having employed Rowe as an informant, the FBI falsely claimed Liuzzo was a heroin-addicted member of the Communist Party who had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African-Americans involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to other honors, Liuzzo's name is today inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, created by Maya Lin. Learn more. |
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