Janurary February March April May June July August September October November December
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| July 1 1889: Frederick Douglass named U.S. Minister to Haiti. 1995: Shirley Jackson assumed chairmanship of Nuclear Regulatory Commission. |
July 2 1872: Elijah McCoy patents first self-lubricating locomotive engine. The quality of his inventions helped coin the phrase "the real McCoy." 1964: President Lyndon Johnson signs Civil Rights Act into law. |
July 3 1688: The Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, make first formal protest against slavery. |
July 4 INDEPENDENCE DAY 1900: Traditional birthdate of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, jazz pioneer. 1991: National Civil Rights Museum opens in Memphis, Tennessee. |
July 5 1892: Andrew J. Beard patents rotary engine. 1991: Nelson Mandela elected president of the African National Congress. |
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| July 6 1957: Althea Gibson wins women's singles title at Wimbledon, first African American to win tennis's most prestigious award. | July 7 1948: Cleveland Indians sign pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige. |
July 8 1943: Faye Wattleton, first African American director of Planned Parenthood, born. 2000: Venus Williams wins women's singles championship at Wimbledon. |
July 9 1893: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs first successful open-heart operation. |
July 10 1875: Educator Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune-Cookman College, born. |
July 11 1905: W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter organize the Niagara Movement, a forerunner of the NAACP. |
July 12 1937: Actor, comedian Bill Cosby born. 1949: Frederick M. Jones patents cooling system for food transportation vehicles. |
| July 13 1965: Thurgood Marshall becomes first African American appointed U.S. solicitor general. |
July 14 1955: George Washington Carver Monument, first national park honoring an African American, is dedicated in Joplin, Missouri. |
July 15 1867: Maggie Lena Walker, first woman and first African American to become president of a bank, born. |
July 16 1862: Anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells Barnett born. |
July 17 1953: Jesse D. Locker appointed U.S. ambassador to Liberia. |
July 18 1939: Saxophonist Coleman Hawkins records "Body and Soul." 1998: African American Civil War Soldiers Memorial dedicated, Washington, D.C. |
July 19 1925: Paris debut of Josephine Baker, entertainer, activist and humanitarian. |
| July 20 1950: Black troops (24th Regiment) win first U.S. victory in Korea. |
July 21 1896: Mary Church Terrell elected first president of National Association of Colored Women. |
July 22 1939: Jane M. Bolin of New York City appointed first African American female judge. |
July 23 1778: More than 700 blacks participate in Battle of Monmouth (New Jersey). |
July 24 1807: Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge born in New York City. |
July 25 1777: First black Baptist church in America organized by eight slaves at Silver Bluff, South Carolina. |
July 26 1948: President Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in armed forces. |
| July 27 1880: Alexander P. Ashbourne patents process for refining coconut oil. |
July 28 1868: 14th Amendment, granting blacks full citizenship rights, becomes part of the Constitution. |
July 29 1895: First National Conference of Women Convention held in Boston. |
July 30 1822: James Varick becomes first bishop of African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. |
July 31 1874: Rev. Patrick Francis Healy inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. |