Jane Matilda Bolin appointed judge of court of domestic relations in New York City, by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and became the first Black woman judge.

Floyd Patterson is defeated by Sony Liston and loses his world heavyweight title, 1963

Donald Gayton Phelps was a remarkable educator who broke new ground for African Americans in the Pacific Northwest and across the country.  He was best known for his keen intellect, powerful voice, and gracious spirit as he served as a role model, mentor, and social critic during his lifetime.

Born on July 22, 1929 in Seattle, Don Phelps was the grandson of John T. and Magnolia Gayton who were among Seattle’s first 19th Century African American settlers.  As a young man, Phelps studied music for three years at the Cornish School and sang frequently at Lincoln High School and in the First African Methodist Episcopal Church choir in Seattle.  He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from Seattle University and his doctorate in education from the University of Washington.

Phelps’s teaching career began in 1960 in the almost exclusively white Bellevue School District.  He taught 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students at Robinswood Elementary, and in 1963, he became the first African American principal in Bellevue.  His students remember him fondly for his booming voice, direction of the school choir, and his passion for students.  For nearly all of his students, he was the first person of color that they knew.

From 1967 to 1969, Phelps served as the first African American principal of Bellevue Junior High School which made him the first black secondary school principal in the state.  In the mid-70s he served as interim superintendent of the Lake Washington School District.  In 1980, he became the president of Seattle Central Community College, and in 1984 he was appointed to be the chancellor.  

From 1968 to 1972, Don Phelps was a regular commentator on community affairs for KOMO, a Seattle radio and television station.  In many of his more than 700 commentaries, he addressed racial issues in one of the most volatile periods in the city’s history.

In 1988, Phelps was appointed the chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest and most diverse community college system in the

Whitman Mayo, best known for playing Grady on TVs Sanford & Son, died in Atlanta of a heart attack. He was 70.

Emancipation Proclamation is read to the cabinet, by Abraham Lincoln, 1861

Concert pianist Natalie Hinderas was born Natalie Leota Henderson on June 15, 1927, to parents Abram Henderson and Leota Palmer Henderson in Oberlin, Ohio. Hinderas came from a family of accomplished musicians.  Her great-grandfather had been a bandleader and teacher, her father was a jazz pianist and bandleader who had toured Europe with his band, and her mother was a piano instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She married Lionel Monagas and the two had daughter Michelle in 1964.

Hinderas started learning the piano at age three and had her first full piano recital when she was eight.  She debuted with the Cleveland Women’s Symphony Orchestra in 1939 at the age of 12, and was the youngest person ever to graduate from the Oberlin Conservatory’s Special Student’s School in 1945 with an honors degree in music. She won an audition for and attended the advanced study program at the Julliard School of Music in New York. Hinderas studied under prominent musicians at Julliard and continued her studies at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music from 1948 to 1953.

After finishing at the Philadelphia Conservatory, Hinderas made her European debut and got a position with NBC-TV to make guest appearances on network programs. She gave televised recitals and concerts abroad as well, traveling to Austria, England, Germany, and Italy in 1957 and 1958.

Hinderas was committed to exposing new audiences to classical music and went on a four month tour with the U.S. State Department in 1959 to Northern and Central Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, giving concerts and lectures on American music; she went on another State Department tour in 1964. In 1966 Hinderas was hired as a faculty member at Temple University College of Music, where she taught and toured other colleges and music festivals. She began a tour of black colleges in 1968 where she performed music by black composers and gave lectures on African American classical musicians. As a consequence of that work she recorded and released the album “Natalie

President Lincoln submitted draft of Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet.S07221935

Lester Walton appointed minister to Liberia.

George Clinton is a popular African-American musician. He is known for his signing, songwriting, music composing skills. In fact, he is the principal creator of P-Funk. Before launching into his solo career during eighties, Clinton was a mastermind behind the bands, Funkadelic and Parliament.

Born on July 22, 1941, in Kannapolis, George Clinton grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and currently settled in Florida. Before stepping into major musical career, Clinton used to work at a barber salon in his teenage. During that period he formed a local band, The Parliaments, inspired by the renowned Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. As the years passed he became a staff songwriter for Motown. At first, the band faced commercial failure but soon after the band was renamed as Parliament. And with that the band also gained success and another band was formed Funkadelic.

Under Clinton’s supervision, the bands were influenced by musical elements from several legendary artists and bands. These bands and artists included names like Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and James Brown. They explored different dimensions of sounds, lyricism and technology in their music. The seventies were dominated by diverse music of Parliament-Funkadelic with over 40 top chart singles. As soon as his bands gained spotlight and success, Clinton began to work on his solo career in the eighties.

From 1982, Clinton took up music production job as well. He not only produced his own albums but also produced albums for several other music artists including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bootsy Collins. Early in his solo career, Clinton produced albums of trivial importance. In fact, these albums also featured work from P-Funk’s core musicians. The sole reason why he would produce music under his own name was due to some legal issues. Later he signed Capitol Records, as a band and also as a solo artist producing Computer Games under his own name. He produced numerous top chart singles and albums, such as “Loopzilla”, “Atomic Dog”, R&B Skeletons in