Hidden Figures
Three brilliant African-American women at NASA -- Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) -- serve as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation's confidence, turned around the Space Race and galvanized the world.
All throughout the History of the United States there have been Achievements and Advancements by African Americans that have gone Unnoticed and Ignored in our History Books.
Also throughout History there has been Injustice to African Americans that has been hidden from public view and only surface around Black History Month or when a Movie or Documentary is made of that person or incident.
Here are a few of our African American"HIDDEN FIGURES" that few people probably have never here of.
George Stinney Jr.
Today in 1944, George Stinney Jr., 14, became the youngest American executed in the 20th century. Stinney was convicted of murdering two Caucasian girls, on the basis that he interacted with the girls the day prior.
George Stinney Jr.
Lena Baker
Lena Baker (June 8, 1900 – March 5, 1945)
[1] was an African American maid in Cuthbert, Georgia who was convicted of capital murder of her white employer, Ernest Knight. She was executed by the state of Georgia in 1945.[2] Baker was the only woman in Georgia to be executed by electrocution. [3][2]
The slaying and execution came during a decades-long period of state suppression of civil rights of black citizens in Georgia by the white-dominated society. It had disenfranchised blacks since the turn of the century, and imposed legal racial segregation and second-class status. At the time of the trial, a local newspaper reported that Baker was held as a "slave woman" by Knight, and that she shot him in self-defense during a struggle.[4]
In 2005, sixty years after her execution, the state of Georgia granted Baker a full and unconditional pardon. A biography was published about Baker in 2001, and it was adapted for the feature film The Lena Baker Story(2008), chronicling the events of her life, trial, and execution.
Lena Baker
Lena Baker
George Edwin Taylor
Almost a century before Barack Obama made history as the first African American to become president of the United States in 2008, a black man by the name of George Edwin Taylor set his eyes on the White House in 1904.
Born in 1857 as the son of a free woman and an African American slave, Taylor worked as a professional journalist before getting involved in politics. However, he discovered that neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party represented the interests of people of color.
In 1904, an all-black independent party called The National Liberty Party nominated Taylor to run for president on a third-party ticket. Taylor’s candidacy was largely ridiculed as a joke and his name was left off the ballot in most states. Nevertheless, Theodore Roosevelt was re-elected as president. Still, Taylor’s run symbolized the growth of political power that black Americans acquired following the Reconstruction Era.
George Edwin Taylor
Margaret and Matilda Peters
Josiah Henson, a dynamic man with unyielding principles, overcame incredible odds to escape from slavery with his wife and children. His life inspired the character of ‘Uncle Tom’ in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 classic novel which is often mentioned as one of the sparks that ignited the Civil War. Critically acclaimed actor Danny Glover narrates the voice of Josiah Henson in this moving film.
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery, in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Upper Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden, in Kent County, Upper Canada, of British Canada.
The Scottsboro Boys were a group of nine black teenagers accused of rape in the 1930s South. The blatant injustice given to them during their trial lead to several legal reforms. Watch as Emory's Associate Professor of African American Studies, Carol Anderson, discusses what happened to these boys both during and after their trial.
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers, ages 13 to 20, falsely accused in Alabama of raping two white women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a miscarriage of justice in the United States legal system.
On March 25, 1931, two dozen people were 'hoboing' on a freight train traveling between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee, the hoboes being an equal mix of African-Americans and Caucasians. A group of white teenage boys saw 18-year-old Haywood Patterson on the train and attempted to push him off the train, claiming that it was "a white man's train".[1] A group of whites gathered rocks and attempted to force all of the black men from the train. Patterson and the other black passengers were able to ward off the group. The humiliated white teenagers jumped or were forced off the train and reported to the city's sheriff that they had been attacked by a group of black teenagers. The sheriff deputized a posse comitatus, stopped and searched the train at Paint Rock, Alabama and arrested the black Americans. Two young white women also got off the train and accused the African American teenagers of rape. The case was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama, in three rushed trials, in which the defendants received poor legal representation. All but 12-year-old Roy Wright were convicted of rape and sentenced to death, the common sentence in Alabama at the time for black men convicted of raping white women,[2] even though there was medical evidence to suggest that they had not committed the crime.[3]
With help from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the case was appealed. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed seven of the eight convictions, and granted 13-year-old Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a minor. Chief Justice John C. Anderson dissented, ruling that the defendants had been denied an impartial jury, fair trial, fair sentencing, and effective counsel. While waiting for their trials, eight of the nine defendants were held in Kilby Prison. The cases were twice appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which led to landmark decisions on the conduct of trials. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), it ordered new trials.[4]
The case was first returned to the lower court and the judge allowed a change of venue, moving the retrials to Decatur, Alabama. Judge Horton was appointed. During the retrials, one of the alleged victims admitted to fabricating the rape story and asserted that none of the Scottsboro Boys touched either of the white women. The jury found the defendants guilty, but the judge set aside the verdict and granted a new trial.
The judge was replaced and the case tried under a judge who ruled frequently against the defense. For the third time a jury—now with one African-American member—returned a guilty verdict. The case was sent to the US Supreme Court on appeal. It ruled that African-Americans had to be included on juries, and ordered retrials.[5] Charges were finally dropped for four of the nine defendants. Sentences for the rest ranged from 75 years to death. All but two served prison sentences; all were released or escaped by 1946. One was shot while being escorted to prison by a Sheriff's Deputy and permanently disabled. Two escaped, were later charged with other crimes, convicted, and sent back to prison. Clarence Norris, the oldest defendant and the only one sentenced to death in the final trial, "jumped parole" in 1946 and went into hiding. He was found in 1976 and pardoned by Governor George Wallace, by which time the case had been thoroughly analyzed and shown to be an injustice. Norris later wrote a book about his experiences. The last surviving defendant died in 1989.
"The Scottsboro Boys", as they became known, were defended by many in the North and attacked by many in the South. The case is now widely considered a miscarriage of justice, highlighted by use of all-white juries. Black Americans in Alabama had been disenfranchised since the late 19th century and were likewise not allowed on juries. The case has been explored in many works of literature, music, theatre, film and television. On November 21, 2013, Alabama's parole board voted to grant posthumous pardons to the three Scottsboro Boys who had not been pardoned or had their convictions overturned.[6]
Dr. Myiesha Taylor
Dr. Myiesha Taylor
For Dr. Myiesha Taylor, the cost was personal. Her father was one of those lost in the violence.
Myiesha was just 18 years old, about to graduate from high school when her father, Dwight Taylor, was walking home from work when he was shot 3 times. No one saw who did it.
Friends put Dwight–bloody and all–into the back of a car and brought him to a hospital. But, Myiesha said, her father didn’t get medical attention in time. He died hours after being shot.
“In trauma you have a golden hour where if you get the person to the hospital and in the O.R. within an hour or so, their chances of survival increase dramatically. Well, my father didn’t have that opportunity,” she said in an interview with NBC News.
But that tragedy brought inspiration. She had always wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but the loss of her father pushed her specifically to the field of emergency medicine. Little did she know that her passion for medicine would inspire the creator of the popular children’s doctor cartoon, Doc McStuffins to be named after her!
“My mother was a registered nurse and my grandmother was a licensed vocational nurse,” explains Taylor. “My family made science, math, and the notion of working in medicine fun! This is how they inspired me – encouraged me! I looked at medicine as something that was attainable because I was always given opportunities in the home to engage in science. My mother would bring medical journals, pamphlets and such home from work. She’d share them with us.”
Sheridan Lewis Leary
Lewis Leary was one of several Black men who were killed during John Brown’s raid on the Harpers Ferry arsenal in October 1859. It was a defining moment in African American history.
Born Sheridan Lewis Leary (sometimes referred to as Lewis Sheridan Leary), he was the second of five children born in Fayetteville, North Carolina to free Black parents. His father Matthew Leary, a saddle maker, was the mixed race son of Jeremiah O’Leary, a descendent of Irish immigrants. His mother Julia A. Menriel Leary was of mixed race, with conflicting accounts of her heritage.
Frustrated with southern racism, 21-year-old Leary moved to Oberlin, Ohio in 1856 where he earned a living as a harness maker. It was no coincidence that Leary found a more hospitable environment at Oberlin. Members of his extended family lived in the area, including his nephew, John Anthony Copeland, Jr., who also participated in the Harpers Ferry raid. Located in Lorain County, southwest of Cleveland, Oberlin was at the time home to a concentrated network of Black and white abolitionists and served as an important site on the Underground Railroad. The town was also the site of Oberlin College, the first interracial and co-educational college in the country. Two years after moving to Oberlin he married Mary Sampson Patterson, and they had one daughter, Lois.
Leary quickly became involved in the town’s abolitionist movement, joining the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society. He participated in the Oberlin-Wellington Slave Rescue, in which he assisted John Price, a runaway slave. After a dramatic effort to keep Price from federal marshals, the rescuers helped him cross the border to Canada and freedom. Thirty-seven men were arrested and indicted for violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Charges were dropped against Leary and most of those arrested. Soon after, Leary and Copeland joined white abolitionist John Brown’s effort to engineer an armed rebellion of slaves at the Harpers Ferry arsenal in Cleveland, Ohio.
On October 6, 1859 Leary and Copeland left Oberlin for Cleveland and arrived nine days later at John Brown’s headquarters, a farmhouse near Harpers Ferry. The attack on the arsenal began the following evening, and Leary, Copeland and John Henry Kagi found themselves cut off from the others. As they attempted to escape, they were fired upon. Kagi was killed instantly. Leary was severely wounded and would die a day later. Copeland escaped injury but was later hanged. It is not known what happened to Leary’s body. Two months after the raid, residents of Oberlin conducted a memorial service for the three residents who had died the conflict: Leary, Copeland, and Shields Green.
After his death, Lewis’s wife Mary married Charles Henry Langston and moved to Kansas. They had a daughter Caroline Mercer Langston, who later married James Hughes. The couple became the parents of the Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes.
Orangeburg Massacre
Orangeburg Massacre
The 1917 Mass Execution Of Black Soldiers
On this date in 1917, thirteen black soldiers were secretly hanged at dawn at a military camp outside San Antonio for their parts in a Houston race riot four months earlier.
During the nadir of American race relations and just months after America’s entry into World War I, the soldiers of this historic all-black unit had been dispatched to build military facilities in Harris County, where they met animosity from whites beyond the everyday insults of Jim Crow law. Here, the service of “arrogant, strutting representatives of black soldiery” was hated and feared.
When white police arrested a black infantryman who tried to prevent their detaining a drunk black woman, then beat up and shot at a black corporal sent to inquire after him, hostility boiled over. Over one hundred soldiers marched through the city — confronting a mob of white citizens and police who had likewise armed themselves. Fifteen whites and four blacks were killed in the ensuing confrontation.