The First National Convention of Black Women held in Boston, MA

Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in the nation, was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1794 by Richard Allen, a former slave.  Allen founded Mother Bethel AME after the church he had been attending, St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) in Philadelphia, began segregating its parishioners by race.  

The perceived need to segregate white and black parishioners at St. George had its roots, ironically, in the preaching of Richard Allen who had been an itinerant preacher and in 1786 began preaching a 5 a.m. sermon at St. George.  Allen’s sermons proved so popular with black Philadelphians that St. George soon became overcrowded.  As black attendance at the church increased, however, so too did race prejudice.  When the ruling body at St. George decided that blacks should be segregated and seated in a newly constructed balcony, Allen and his followers decided it was time to leave and start a new church.  

With financial assistance from individuals such as Dr. Benjamin Rush and President George Washington, Allen purchased a piece of land at 6th and Lombard streets in Philadelphia.  He also bought an old blacksmith shop and moved it to the 6th and Lombard location.  The Blacksmith Shop Meeting House, as the structure came to be called, was remodeled into a house of worship and dedicated on July 29, 1794.  The pastor of St. George, the Reverend John Dickins, suggested that the new church should be called “Bethel” for the gathering of thousands of souls. The church still carries this name today.

Just one year after its founding, Bethel’s congregation numbered 121.  Ten years later, in 1805, the congregation had grown to 457, and the church decided to expand.  Two lots adjoining the original 6th and Lombard site were purchased and a new building was constructed to replace the original Blacksmith Shop Meeting House.  

Although technically still part of the predominantly white Methodist Episcopal Church, the Bethel congregation limited

Chester Himes , in full Chester Bomar Himes (born July 29, 1909, Jefferson City, Mo., U.S.—died Nov. 12, 1984, Moraira, Spain), African-American writer whose novels reflect his encounters with racism. As an expatriate in Paris, he published a series of black detective novels.

The domination of his dark-skinned father by his light-skinned mother was a source of deep resentment that shaped Himes’s racial outlook. The family’s frequent relocations, as well as the accidental blinding of his brother, further disrupted his childhood. Himes attended Ohio State University. From 1929 to 1936 he was jailed at the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery, and while there he began to write fiction. A number of his stories appeared in Esquire and other American magazines. After his release from prison, he worked at numerous odd jobs and joined the Works Progress Administration, eventually serving as a writer with the Ohio Writers’ Project.

His first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), details the fear, anger, and humiliation of a black employee of a racist defense plant during World War II. Lonely Crusade (1947) concerns racism in the labour movement. Cast the First Stone (1952) portrays prison life, and The Third Generation (1954) examines family life.

In the mid-1950s Himes moved to Paris. There he wrote chiefly murder mysteries set in New York City’s Harlem. These include The Crazy Kill (1959), Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965; film, 1970), and Blind Man with a Pistol (1969; later retitled Hot Day, Hot Night). Among his other works are Run Man, Run (1966), a thriller; Pinktoes (1961), a satirical work of interracial erotica; and Black on Black (1973), a collection of stories. He also published two volumes of autobiography, The Quality of Hurt (1972) and My Life As Absurdity (1976).

Physician Bernard A. Harris, Jr. becomes an astronaut

Haben Girma, both blind and deaf, is a disability rights advocate and attorney who became the first deaf and blind graduate of Harvard Law School in Massachusetts when she graduated with a Juris Doctor degree (JD) in 2013.

Girma was born on July 29, 1988, in Oakland, California to her mother, Saba Gebreyesus, who was a refugee from Eritrea.  Gebreyesus fled the country in 1983 during the Eritrea War of Independence against Ethiopia. Girma’s mother and father, an Ethiopian whose name is unknown, met when both lived in Oakland.  Girma was educated in the Oakland Public Schools where she benefited from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, a civil rights law that outlawed discrimination based on disability. Girma learned braille while in school using a digital technology device that helped her read and absorb information faster than with the previous generations of Braille readers. When Girma was 15 years old and despite her blindness and deafness, she got the opportunity to travel to the West African nation of Mali to do volunteer work, helping to build schools with BuildOn, an Oakland nonprofit organization which ran youth service afterschool programs.  The nonprofit also helped build schools in developing countries.

Girma attended Lewis and Clark College, a private liberal arts college, in Portland, Oregon. During her time at Lewis and Clark College, she was successful in persuading college officials to provide an accommodation so she could eat with other students in the school cafeteria.

Girma graduated from Lewis and Clark with her Bachelor of Arts Degree in 2010 and then entered Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was the first deaf and blind student to attend Harvard Law School and upon graduation in 2013 became the first deaf and blind student to graduate from that institution.

In 2013, Girma joined Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) in Berkeley, California where she specifically performed legal work for people with disabilities. She also worked with the National Federation of the

George Dixon, born July 29, 1870 in Africville, (Halifax), Nova Scotia; becomes the first Black to hold a WORLD title in boxing.

George beat Nunc Wallace in the Pelican Club in England & recieved $4,250.00 - he was the only Black in the Club!

Chester Himes, crime novelist, born

One person was killed in six days of rioting in Hartford, Connecticut.

S.E.K. Mqhayi , in full Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi (born Dec. 1, 1875, near Gqumahashe, Cape Colony [now in South Africa]—died July 29, 1945, Ntab’ozuko, S.Af.), Xhosa poet, historian, and translator who has been called the “father of Xhosa poetry.”

Mqhayi, who was born into a family of long Christian standing, spent several of his early years in rural Transkei, a circumstance that is reflected in his evident love of Xhosa history and his mastery of the praise poem. He taught school and helped to edit several Xhosa-language journals. In 1905 he was appointed to the Xhosa Bible Revision Board, and he later helped codify Xhosa grammar and standardize Xhosa orthography. After completing this work, Mqhayi devoted most of his time to writing.

His first published book, U-Samson, was a version of the biblical story of Samson. In 1914 his Ityala lamawele (“The Lawsuit of the Twins”) appeared. Inspired by another biblical story, Ityala lamawele is a defense of Xhosa law before European administration. In the 1920s Mqhayi wrote several biographies and Imihobe nemibongo (1927; “Songs of Joy and Lullabies”), the first published collection of Xhosa poems, many of which celebrate current events or important figures. A work of fiction, U-Don Jadu (1929), describes a utopian multiracial state that combines elements of Western society and Xhosa culture. Mqhayi’s autobiography, U-Mqhayi wase Ntab’ozuko (1939; “Mqhayi of the Mountain of Beauty”), gives a vivid picture of late 19th-century Xhosa life.

Mqhayi’s collected poems, Inzuzo (“Reward”), were published in 1942. A short autobiography and two works, “The Death of Hintsa” and “The Dismissal of Sir Benjamin D’Urban,” were published in Mqhayi in Translation (1976).

John Crawford III was born on July 29, 1992.

The National Liberty Congress of Colored Americans asked Congress to make lynching a federal crime.

First convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians; held in Chicago. It awarded its first scholarship to the young Marian Anderson.