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| June 1 1968: Henry Lewis becomes first black musical director of an American symphony orchestra - New Jersey Symphony. |
June 2 1971: Samuel L. Gravely Jr. becomes first African American admiral in U.S. Navy. |
June 2 1971: Samuel L. Gravely Jr. becomes first African American admiral in U.S. Navy. |
June 4 1972: Activist Angela Davis acquitted of all murder and conspiracy charges. |
June 5 1987: Dr. Mae C. Jemison becomes first black woman astronaut. |
June 6 1831: First annual People of Color convention held in Philadelphia. |
June 7 1917: Poetess Gwendolyn Brooks, first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize (poetry, 1950), born. |
| June 8 1953: Supreme Court ruling bans discrimination in Washington, D.C., restaurants. |
June 9 1962: W.W. Braithwaite, poet, anthologist and literary critic, dies in New York City. 1995: Lincoln J. Ragsdale, pioneer fighter pilot of World War II, dies. |
June 10 1854: James Augustine Healy, first African American Roman Catholic bishop, ordained. |
June 11 1912: Joseph H. Dickinson patents player piano. 1920: Pianist and singer Hazel Dorothy Scott born. |
June 12 1963: Medgar W. Evers, civil rights leader, assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi. |
June 13 1967: Thurgood Marshall nominated to Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson. |
June 14 FLAG DAY 1864: Congress rules equal pay for all soldiers. 1927: George Washington Carver patents process of producing paints and stains. |
| June 15 FATHER'S DAY 1913: Dr. Effie O'Neal Ellis, first black woman to hold an executive position in the American Medical Association, born. |
June 16 1970: Kenneth A. Gibson elected mayor of Newark, New Jersey, first African American mayor of a major Eastern city. |
June 17 1775: Minuteman Peter Salem fights in the Battle of Bunker Hill. |
June 18 1863: The 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry attacks Fort Wagner, South Carolina. 1942: Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson commissioned as the Navy's first African American officer. |
June 19 1865: Blacks in Texas are notified of Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863. "Juneteenth" marks the event. |
June 20 1953: Albert W. Dent of Dillard University elected president of the National Health Council. |
June 21 1945: Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes first African American to command an Army Air Corps base. |
| June 22 1897: William Barry patents postmarking and cancelling machine. |
June 23 1940: Sprinter Wilma Rudolph, winner of three gold medals at 1960 Summer Olympics, born. |
June 24 1964: Carl T. Rowan appointed director of the United States Information Agency. |
June 25 1941: Franklin D. Roosevelt issues executive order establishing Fair Employment Practices Commission. |
June 26 1950: AMA seats first black delegates at annual convention. 1975: Dr. Samuel Blanton Rosser becomes first African American certified in pediatric surgery. |
June 27 1991: Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall announces his retirement. |
June 28 1864: Fugitive slave laws repealed by Congress. 1978: Allan P. Bakke wins reverse-discrimination suit when the Supreme Court orders the University of California Medical School at Davis to admit him. |
| June 29 1886: Photographer James Van Der Zee born. |
June 30 1921: Charles S. Gilpin awarded Spingarn Medal for his performance in Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones. |