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 May 12:
| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1862 |  Enslaved crewman Robert Smalls leads his fellow enslaved crew members of the Charleston-based Confederate warship Steamer Planter and their families to escape bondage and deliver possession of their ship to Union forces. Smalls served the remainder of the Civil War in the Union navy and was eventually promoted to ships captain. After the war, Smalls served as a Congressman. Learn more. | |
| 1898 |  The state of Louisiana adopts a new constitution with numerous restrictive provisions intended to disempower and exclude African Americans from civic participation. After Reconstruction ended in 1877 and white politicians and lawmakers regained control and power in the South, many efforts were made to restore that racial order through very strict laws that stripped Black people of many of their new civil rights. In Louisiana, framers explicitly expressed their goal to “purify the electorate.” The new Louisiana Constitution created a poll tax, literacy and property-ownership requirements, and a complex voter registration form all designed and enforced to disproportionately disenfranchise Black voters. A “Grandfather Clause” created an exception for those whose ancestors were registered to vote before 1867, thus enabling the estimated 25% of whites who were illiterate and poor to be exempted from the literacy and property requirements. Black people remained blocked because Louisiana laws before 1867 disenfranchised nearly all African Americans—especially those who were enslaved. The 1898 Louisiana constitution also eliminated the requirement of unanimous jury verdicts, allowing as much as a 9-3 split to still stand as a conviction, ensuring the conviction of African American defendants even when Black jurors voted to acquit. Learn more. | |
| 1957 |  Ertharin Cousin, American diplomat, lawyer, and advocate for ending global hunger, is born in Chicago, IL. Cousin served from 2009-2012 under President Barack Obama as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, serving in Rome, Italy, and chief of the United States Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome. Cousin served as the twelfth Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme from 2012 to 2017. Following the completion of her term, Cousin became Payne Distinguished Professor at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, accepted an appointment as a Distinguished Fellow with The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and became Trustee on the UK based Power of Nutrition Board of Directors. Learn more.
| |
| 1970 |  Before dawn, police brutally and arbitrarily suppress a 3-day protest that police-initiated violence and white official's intransigence had escalated and provoked into a riot. Three days before, on the evening of May 9, Charles Oatman, a popular, mentally-challenged 16-year-old student at A.R. Johnson Junior High School, had been beaten to death in the county jail. In a tragic accident in late March, Charles had fatally wounded his young niece in the kitchen of his family’s small house. Disregarding the accidental nature of the incident, white authorities charged Charles with killing her and incarcerated him. Over the course of several weeks in the jail, 16-yo Charles Oatman was brutally tortured and beaten, ultimately dying of his injuries. His badly mutilated body carried cigarette burns, marks from a fork, and a deep gash in the back of his head. On the evening of May 10 several hundred demonstrated at the county jail, demanding answers from white officials but making little headway. Sheriff’s deputies were on hand (and on the jail’s roof) with weapons drawn. On the afternoon of May 11 an even larger group demonstrated in front of the Municipal Building, and again were confronted by shotgun-wielding police officers. When the news emerged that the sheriff had concluded his brief, tacit investigation and charged two Black teenagers with manslaughter, many were indignant to the point of rage and began rioting and destroying property of businesses known to discriminate. With the endorsement of the governor, shoot-to-kill orders from their captain, and reinforcements by the National Guard and State Patrol, white police went into violent overdrive at nightfall, firing shotguns indiscriminately at African Americans, wounding at least sixty people and killing six. Despite police claims they acted in self-defense, the six men they killed were all unarmed and all shot in the back, and three were shot multiple times. Learn more. |
Please follow and like us:
