July 20
1967—The first Black Power Conference takes place in Newark, N.J. More than 1,000 delegates representing 126 organizations attended. The conference represented a break with the integration-with-Whites thrust of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Instead, delegates called for greater focus on Black political empowerment, economic development, community control and the building of Black institutions.
July 21
1864—Amazingly, what is now considered the first Black daily newspaper begins publishing on this day during slavery. The New Orleans Tribune was founded by wealthy Black Doctor Louis C. Roudanez and edited by a Belgium Jean-Charles Heuzean. The Tribune, however, actually followed the Daily Creole which began publication in 1856. But it was so pressured by Whites that it adopted pro-slavery positions. The Tribune, meanwhile, would begin as a tri-weekly and become a full-fledged daily in October.
1896—The National Association of Colored Women is founded in Washington, D.C., and Mary Church Terrell is elected president. The association would establish nurseries, help orphans, and battle for a woman’s right to vote. Terrell became an activist and power broker in the nation’s capital fighting for desegregation of restaurants and helping build schools. She was born in 1863 and died in 1954.
2001—Blues legend John Lee Hooker dies. He was 83.
July 22
1861—President Abraham Lincoln submits the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. The order freeing slaves, however, was not actually issued until Jan. 1, 1863. And even then it benefited very few slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the rebellious Southern states. But the federal government at the time did not have control of the South so no slaves actually went free. In the so-called Border States where the federal government did have authority, the Proclamation did not apply. About the only slaves who benefited were those who had already escaped and fled to the Union side during the Civil War.
1939—Jane Matilda Bolin becomes the first Black female judge in America. New York City Mayor Fiorella LaGuadia appointed her a judge in the court of domestic relations.
1963—Floyd Patterson loses his heavyweight boxing title to Sonny Liston and Liston would later lose it to a young fighter by the name of Cassius Clay—later Muhammad Ali.
2001—Actor Whitman Mayo dies in Atlanta, Ga., of a heart attack. He was 71. Mayo is best known for his role as “Grady” in the popular 1970s television series “Sanford and Son.”
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