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 February 17:

Date	Type	Event
1891		African American A.C. Richardson secures US Patent number 446,470 for his invention of an improved butter churn. Learn more.
1938		Mary Frances Berry, scholar, professor, author, and civil rights activist who served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, is born in Nashville, Tennessee to parents Frances Southall Berry and George Ford Berry. Due to her mother’s poverty and the desertion of her father, she and her brothers spent time in an orphanage. She attended the segregated public schools in Nashville but in the 10th grade she found a mentor in her teacher, Minerva Hawkins, who challenged Berry to excel in academics. Berry earned her B.A. in history from Howard University in 1961. She earned a history Ph.D. in 1966 from the University of Michigan. In 1968 Berry became a faculty member at the University of Maryland and supervised the establishment of an African American Studies Program at that institution. Berry earned her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1970 and became the acting director of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Maryland. From 1974 to 1976 she served as University Provost, becoming the first African American woman to hold that position. President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1980. Her 1993 book The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women’s Rights, and the Myth of the Good Mother, argued for men to take an equal role in child care and for a rethinking of gender roles. In 1993 Berry was appointed Chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission by President Bill Clinton and reappointed in 1999. After leaving government in 2004, Berry returned to academia as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more.
1942		Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, is born. Despite graduating from high school not knowing how to read, he taught himself literacy by reading Plato's Republic and earned a Ph.D. in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz's History of Consciousness program in 1980. Newton crafted the Black Panther Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966. Under Newton's leadership, the Black Panther Party founded over 60 community support programs (renamed survival programs in 1971) including food banks, medical clinics, sickle cell anemia tests, prison busing for families of inmates, legal advice seminars, clothing banks, housing cooperatives, and their own ambulance service. The most famous of these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children program which fed thousands of impoverished children daily during the early 1970s. Newton also used his position as a leader within the Black Panther Party to welcome women and LGBT people into the party, describing homosexuals as "the most oppressed people" in society.Newton also co-founded the Black Panther newspaper service which became one of America's most widely distributed African-American newspapers. In 1967, he was involved in a shootout which led to the death of a police officer John Frey and injuries to himself and another police officer. In 1968, Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for Frey's death and sentenced to 2 to 15 years in prison, but the conviction was later reversed and after two subsequent trials ended in hung juries, the charges were dropped. Later in life he was also accused of murdering Kathleen Smith and Betty Patter, although he was never convicted for either deaths. In 1989, Newton was murdered in Oakland, California. Learn more.
1947		Willie Earle, a 24-year-old African American man, was being held in the Pickens County Jail in South Carolina on charges of assaulting a white taxi cab driver. A mob of white men—mostly taxi cab drivers—seized Mr. Earle from the jail, took him to a deserted country road near Greenville, brutally beat him with guns and knives, and then shot him to death. When arrested, 26 of the 31 defendants gave full statements admitting participation in Mr. Earle’s death. The defense did not rebut the confessions, but instead blamed “northern interference” for bringing the case to trial at all. At one point, the defense attorney likened Mr. Earle to a “mad dog” that deserved killing, and the mostly white spectators laughed in support. Despite the undisputed confession, the all-white jury acquitted the defendants of all charges on May 21, 1947, and the judge ordered them released. Learn more.