Black History Knowledge — October 11

What happened on this day. These are the October 11 moments in Black history worth knowing, remembering, and passing on.

1887 — Alexander Miles received a patent for an automatic elevator-door mechanism

U.S. Patent No. 371,207 was issued to Alexander Miles on October 11, 1887, for improvements that allowed elevator-shaft doors to open and close automatically with the car. Miles’s design addressed a dangerous feature of early elevators and is a notable example of Black technological innovation in the late nineteenth century.

1921 — Texas officers shot and killed David Bunn, a handcuffed Black man fleeing a lynch mob

On October 11, 1921, Tarrant County Sheriff Carl Smith and Deputy Tom Snow fatally shot David Bunn, a handcuffed Black man, as he tried to escape a lynch mob while being moved from the Dallas County Jail to the Tarrant County Courthouse. Four days earlier more than 500 white people had surrounded the Tarrant County Jail in three lynching attempts. Bunn jumped from the car near Arlington, the officers shot him four times, and no one was charged. The killing shows how Jim Crow-era law enforcement could itself carry out mob violence against Black people, with no accountability.

1991 — Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee

On October 11, 1991, Anita Hill testified publicly that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her when they worked together. The hearings continued through October 13. Hill’s testimony changed national conversation about workplace sexual harassment, power, race, gender, and whose accounts receive institutional credibility.

Wear the history: Alexander Miles — from the Black Knowledge Wear collection.