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Today in “Hidden” History
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 07:
| Date | Type | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1539 |  Moroccan explorer Estevanico ("Little Stephen") (modern spelling Estebanico), or as Esteban de Dorantes, sets out to explore what is now the southwestern United States. Though the first non-Native American to explore areas of the American South and West (preceding Coronado, who is widely credited in popular historical accounts), de Dorantes’s achievements in the 16th century largely remain unknown and undervalued due to his race and his status as an enslaved person. He was among the only four survivors of about 600 men that went on a Spanish (conquistador) expedition to present-day Florida in the United States of America and widely believed to be the first African to have reached the present-day USA. Learn more. | |
| 1759 |  Agrippa Hull a free African-American patriot is born. An important patriot of the Revolutionary War, Hull’s relative obscurity in history is an illustration of the erasure of Black accomplishment in popular narratives. Hull was assigned by George Washington to served as an orderly to Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish military officer, engineer and nobleman, for five years during the American Revolutionary War. He served for a total of six years and two months. After the war, he received a veteran's pension. It was signed by George Washington, and he treasured it for the rest of his life. Born free in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1759 in the middle of the Seven Years' War, Hull became the most significant black landowner in Stockbridge, where he lived after the Revolutionary War. He lived to the age of eighty-nine. Learn more. | |
| 1942 |  The first cadets graduate from the flight school at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). They were the first Black pilots in commissioned for US military service. Previously, African Americans had been denied flight service in the military specifically on account of racist discrimination. Learn more. | |
| 1965 |  African American voting rights activists conduct the first (of three) Selma to Montgomery protest marches in March 1965. This first march is met with violent suppression and the date becomes known worldwide as “Bloody Sunday”.
The Selma to Montgomery marches were a series of marches along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, the marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of violent segregationist repression. The marches were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement.
The Selma to Montgomery marches were preceded earlier in the year by several local and regional marches protesting the denial of voting rights. Local and state officials sought to fiercely repress the peaceful marches were fiercely suppressed, with approximately 3,000 people arrested by the end of February. On February 26, 1965, activist and deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson died after being shot several days earlier by state trooper James Bonard Fowler, during a peaceful march in nearby Marion, Alabama.
To defuse and refocus the community's outrage, James Bevel, who was directing SCLC's Selma voting rights movement, called for a march of dramatic length, from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. The first march took place on March 7, 1965, organized locally by Bevel, Amelia Boynton, and others. State troopers and county possemen attacked the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas after they passed over the county line, and the event became known as Bloody Sunday. Law enforcement beat Boynton unconscious, and the media publicized worldwide a picture of her lying wounded on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Learn more. |
