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 April 07:

Date	Type	Event
1712		The first revolt against slavery in New York City takes place. Between twenty-five and fifty enslaved Blacks congregated at midnight. With guns, swords and knives in hand, they first set fire to an outhouse then fired shots at several white slave owners, who had raced to scene to fight the fire. By the end of the night, nine whites were killed and six whites were injured. The next day the governor of New York ordered the New York and Westchester militias to “drive the island.” With the exception of six rebels who committed suicide before they were apprehended, all of the rebels were captured and tortured, most to death, with ferocity ranging from being burned alive to being broken at the wheel. Learn more.
1872		Newspaper editor, Boston real estate businessman, and African-American civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter (sometimes just Monroe Trotter) is born. Trotter earned his graduate and post-graduate degrees at Harvard University, and was the first man of color to earn a Phi Beta Kappa key there. Seeing an increase in segregation in northern facilities, he began to engage in a life of activism, to which he devoted his assets. Trotter was an early opponent of Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist policies, and in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian, an independent African-American newspaper he used to express that opposition. He joined with W. E. B. Du Bois in founding the Niagara Movement in 1905, a forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His protest activities were sometimes seen to be at cross purposes to those of the NAACP. In 1914, he had a highly publicized meeting with President Woodrow Wilson, in which he protested Wilson's introduction of segregation into the federal workplace. In Boston, Trotter succeeded in shutting down productions of The Clansman in 1910, but he was unsuccessful in 1915 with screenings of the movie The Birth of a Nation, which also portrayed the Ku Klux Klan in favorable terms. In 1921, in an alliance with Roman Catholics, he got a revival screening of The Birth of a Nation banned. He died on his 62nd birthday. Learn more.
1885		Granville T. Woods, a leading inventor of the 19th and early 20th centuries, patents an apparatus for transmission of messages by using electricity. Woods’s Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph enabled communications from moving trains, completely changing the operation of the railway system. The invention dramatically improved the safety and reliability of America’s transportation system, saving perhaps thousands of lives, by allowing trains to communicate with each other while moving on the rails. Woods sold his telegraphony invention which was a system in which a telegraph station could use a single wire to send messages by voice and telegraph to American Bell Telephone Company. Learn more.
1915		Eleanora Fagan, known professionally as Billie Holiday, is born. An American jazz and swing music singer nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and popsinging. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills. Learn more.