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 August 27:

Date	Type	Event
1918		Pioneering journalist and commentator Simeon Saunders Booker Jr. is born to Simeon Saunders Sr. and Roberta Waring Booker as the second of four children. Despite his father’s hopes that he would one day become a Baptist minister, Booker’s passion for deconstructing racism in the United States propelled him into journalism and activism. Booker’s innovative career in journalism transformed how African American readers engaged with news coverage of politics and social injustices. In 1952, Booker became the first African American reporter for the Washington Post. Although Booker’s employment at the Washington Post was groundbreaking, he was displeased with being assigned to cover only general news, and left the Post in 1954 to become Jet’s chief columnist. At Jet, Booker was finally granted the platform to freely provide critical analysis of the Civil Rights Movement. After the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, Booker accompanied Mamie Till, to the viewing of the body. It was Booker who insisted that photos of Till’s open-casket be published in Jet while others were hesitant. The photos, along with Booker’s narrative of the tragedy, were published in the September 1955 edition of the magazine, inspiring thousands of people, including Rosa Parks, to take immediate action. Booker’s reporting on Till’s murder, the Freedom Rides, and many other pivotal moments in civil rights history guided him towards becoming the second African American reporter, after Harry S. McAlpin, to gain White House press credentials. Learn more.
1949		The first of two Peekskill Riots of 1949 takes place when a violent white mob attacks African Americans and Jewish Americans attending a benefit concert in Peekskill, New York (in Westchester County) for the Civil Rights Congress, a legal defense organization. The concert’s headline act was Paul Robeson, the singer and actor whose communist sympathies, opposition to U.S. foreign policy, and outspokenness on issues of racial equality and anticolonialism led him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Just before Robeson arrived in Peekskill, a mob of 300 local residents including many youth, attacked concert attendees with sticks, clubs, and rocks. Rioters lynched an effigy of Robeson, burned a cross on the concert grounds, and chanted, “Go home Commies” and “Dirty Kikes” (the latter slur was likely a reference to Helen Rosen, a friend of Robeson’s and one of the concert organizers). Members of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars participated in the attacks, while local police refused to respond. Thirteen people were injured. Concert organizers decided to postpone the event until September 4 (when white mobs riot and attack even more violently in the second Peekskill Riot of 1949). Learn more.
1960		Dozens of Black teens staging a peaceful sit-in protest at a “whites only” Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jacksonville, Florida are viciously attacked by a mob of 200 white people wielding ax handles and baseball bats on what has come to be known as Ax Handle Saturday. The attack began when white onlookers angered by the demonstration began spitting on the sit-in protesters and yelling racial slurs at them. When the Black youths refused to respond and continued sitting peacefully, the violence escalated. The white people beat the demonstrators with wooden ax handles and baseball bats and soon spread into the streets of downtown Jacksonville, attacking Black people indiscriminately. The attack left more than fifty people injured. As bloodied and battered Black children fled to a nearby church to seek refuge, many white police officers joined the mob violence, arrested the fleeing civil rights demonstrators, or did nothing. Learn more.