Gilbert Creed (1895 - 1917)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Gilbert's lifetime.

In 1895, in the year that Gilbert Creed was born, on March 15th, in County Tipperary, Ireland, Michael Cleary killed his wife of 8 years, Bridget, and burned her body. His defense was that his "wife" was a changeling that was left in his real wife's place when she was abducted by fairies. He was nonetheless convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter. He spent 15 years in prison.

In 1900, by the time he was only 5 years old, Carrie Chapman Catt succeeded Susan B. Anthony as the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. NAWSA was created by Anthony in 1890 in order to fight for the right of women to vote in the United States. Membership in NAWSA began at 7,000 and in the decades of the struggle - women didn't get the right to vote until 1920 - membership rose to 2 million.

In 1909, Gilbert was just 14 years old when the NAACP was founded by W. E. B. Du Bois. The organization focused on legal strategies designed to confront the critical civil rights issues of the day - which included lynching and segregation in schools. The goal was to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.

In 1917, in the year of Gilbert Creed's passing, on July 28, between ten and fifteen thousand blacks silently walked down New York City's Fifth Avenue to protest racial discrimination and violence. Lynchings in Waco Texas and hundreds of African-Americans killed in East St. Louis Illinois had sparked the protest. Picket signs said "Mother, do lynchers go to heaven?" "Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?" "Thou shalt not kill." "Pray for the Lady Macbeth's of East St. Louis" and "Give us a chance to live."