Black History Knowledge — October 12

What happened on this day. These are the October 12 moments in Black history worth knowing, remembering, and passing on.

1967 — Bob Gibson won his third game of the World Series to clinch the title for the St. Louis Cardinals

On October 12, 1967, Bob Gibson pitched the St. Louis Cardinals to a 7-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the World Series at Fenway Park. Pitching on three days’ rest, Gibson threw a complete-game three-hitter and hit a home run off Jim Lonborg in the fifth inning. The win was his third of the Series, and he was named World Series Most Valuable Player. Gibson, who had faced segregation and openly hostile treatment of Black players early in his professional career, delivered one of the most dominant individual performances in World Series history.

1972 — Racial violence erupted aboard USS Kitty Hawk

During the night of October 12-13, 1972, a series of confrontations and assaults involving Black and white sailors spread through the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. The incident exposed deep racial tension, grievances over discipline and berthing, and the strain of extended combat deployments inside the Vietnam-era Navy, and prompted a congressional investigation.

1994 — Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free Black community in the present-day United States, was designated a National Historic Landmark

On October 12, 1994, the Fort Mose Site near St. Augustine, Florida, was designated a National Historic Landmark. The National Park Service’s statement of significance describes Fort Mose, officially Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, as a free Black military and residential community and the first legally sanctioned free Black community within the present boundaries of the United States. Its inhabitants were mainly Black people who had escaped slavery in the British colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, reaching Spanish Florida in small groups at least as early as 1687; they emigrated to Cuba in 1763 when Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain. The designation gave federal recognition to a site of Black self-emancipation and free Black community life that predates the American Revolution by decades.

1995 — Police killed Jonny Gammage during a traffic stop in Brentwood, Pennsylvania

On October 12, 1995, police stopped Jonny Gammage, a Black man driving a Jaguar owned by Pittsburgh Steelers player Ray Seals, in Brentwood, Pennsylvania. Five officers pinned him face-down, and the Equal Justice Initiative states their use of force suffocated him. One officer was acquitted by an all-white jury, charges against two others were dismissed after mistrials, and the Justice Department declined civil rights charges in 1999. The case became an example of an unarmed Black motorist dying at police hands with no officer convicted.