Civil rights activist WEB Dubois, founds the Niagra Movement

Olaudah Equiano, writer of one of the earliest accounts of traveling on the Middle Passage, buys his freedom from a Quaker merchant in Philadephia

On July 11, 2000, journalist and clergywoman Vashti Murphy McKenzie became the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In 2005 she became the denomination’s first woman to serve as Titular Head. Her commitment to community development is evident in her work with urban American cities as well as in AIDS-stricken Africa.

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie was born on May 28, 1947 into a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family. Her great-grandfather John Henry Murphy, Sr. founded the Afro-American Newspaper in 1892, and her grandmother Vashti Turly Murphy was a founding member of Delta Sigma Theta, an African American college sorority. Bishop McKenzie graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland in 1978. She later earned a master’s of divinity from Howard University and a doctor of ministry from United Theological Seminary.

Bishop McKenzie began her career in journalism, working as a radio and television broadcaster and newspaper reporter before pursuing studies in divinity. After being ordained in 1984, she served as pastor for small congregations before being assigned in 1990 to the Payne Memorial AME Church in Baltimore’s inner city. Under her direction, the congregation grew from 300 to 1,700 members. She initiated community development projects including job service programs and a senior care center. Ten years later, at its annual convention in Cincinnati, the AME Church elected her to be its first female bishop, presiding over the 18th Episcopal District in southeast Africa. In that capacity she was responsible for several congregations in Africa comprised of nearly 10,000 people. Her project initiatives again centered on community development, encouraging entrepreneurial business programs and building mission housing. She also expanded services to homeless children and those infected with HIV/AIDS.

In 2005 she became the first woman to serve as Titular Head of the AME Church, overseeing the Council of Bishops as its president. She currently presides over the

Irvin Hicks was a career Foreign Service Officer who rose from a communications clerk position to serve three times as a U.S. ambassador.  Hicks served in the Department of State during the nascent years of African Independence from European colonial rule.  Hicks was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Seychelles by President Ronald Reagan.  He served as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Victoria from 1985 to 1987.  In 1992 President George H.W. Bush nominated Hicks to be Deputy Representative of the United States of America to the Security Council in the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador.  He was later appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary by President Bill Clinton to Ethiopia.  Hicks was Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa from 1994 to 1996.

Irvin Hicks was born March 16, 1938, in Baltimore, Maryland.   In 1961 he took a job as a clerk typist at the Department of the Army in Washington, D.C.  He left this position in 1962 to join the Department of State where he would serve as a career Foreign Service Officer (FSO).  After training for the position of communications clerk he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Libreville, Gabon.  While in Libreville he also held the position of accounts assistant until 1964.  Later the same year he returned to the United States for training in the State Departments’ Foreign Service Institute, which included language training in French.

After Foreign Service training Hicks was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali.  He served in various capacities including accounts assistant, budget and fiscal specialist, post management assistant and administrative support officer.  In 1968 he took leave from the Department and served until 1969 as budget director for the Community Development Agency in New York.

After his brief absence he returned to the Department in 1969 as an administrative support officer.  From 1970 to 1973, he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Bangui, Central

Black intellectuals and activists organized Niagara movement (the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) at a meeting near Niagara Falls. Delegates from fourteen states, led by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, demanded abolition of all distinctions based on race.

Dr. Blanche Sellers Lavizzo was the first African American woman pediatrician in the state of Washington.  She arrived in Seattle in 1956, with her husband Dr. Philip Lavizzo, a general surgeon.   They had left medical practices in New Orleans, Louisiana to pursue a better future in the Pacific Northwest.   She had been in a private practice in pediatrics in Seattle until 1970, when she became the first medical director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.  In this position she became the mainstay of health care for children in the Central Area and it was she who gave the clinic its motto, “Quality care with dignity.”

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 11, 1925, she was a friend and schoolmate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Her father was the owner of one of Atlanta’s largest black funeral homes.  She graduated from Spelman College in 1946, and from Meharry Medical College in 1950.  In 1975, she received a Masters in Public Health from the University of Washington.  In 1991, a 1,953 acre park-- formerly known as the Yesler Atlantic Pedestrian Pathway, which led to the clinic-- was renamed the Dr. Blanche Lavizzo Park and in 1995 a water play area for children in the Edwin T. Pratt Park was named in her honor.

Independent Historian

1925 : Mattiwilda Dobbs, opera coloratura, born. She debuted at La Scala in Milan in 1953. Her U.S. debut was in 1955 with the San Francisco Opera.

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, dies. He worked in the Underground Railroad and with Frederick Douglass. He was also a clothing retailer, the publisher of the first African American newspaper in California, Mirror of the Times, the first African American elected municipal judge, and a U.S. consul to Madagascar.

First White Citizens Council organized in Indianola, Mississippi.

He died in Little Rock on July 11, 1915 at the age of 92.

Leon Spinks (born July 11, 1953) is a former American boxer who made a name for himself in the international heavyweight championship; he has an overall record of 26 wins, 17 losses as well as three draws as a professional- he made 14 of those wins via knockouts.