august
1st
In 1775 Thomas Paine, the editor of the Pennsylvania magazine, wrote the first article proposing women’s rights
In 1879 Mary Eliza Mahoney graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children, becoming the first professional black nurse in America
2nd
Friendship Day
Jewell Jackson McCabe, president of the national coalition of 100 African-American women, was born
3rd
Elisha Otis, inventor of the elevator, was born
Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn was born
4th
Barack Obama was born in 1961
Three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were found murdered and buried in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi.
5th
John Eliot was born in 1604. He was known as the "Apostle to the Indians,"because of his translation of the Bible into an Indian language, which later became the first Bible to be printed in America.
Nelson Mandela, South African freedom fighter, imprisoned in 1962. He was not released until 1990.
6th
Gertrude Ederle breaks all records in 1926 when she is the first woman to swim across the English Channel
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act suspended literacy, knowledge, and character tests meant to keep African Americans from voting in the South.
7th
Ralph J. Bunche, African American statesman and Nobel Prize recipient, was born in Detroit, Michigan.
In 1790 the United State Senate approves the Treaty of New York between the United Sates and the Creeks.
8th
International Day of the World's Indigenous People, Australia
Matthew Henson, an African American explorer, was born in 1866
9th
In 1995 Roberta Cooper Ramo becomes the first woman to hold the office of president of the American Bar Association
Leona Woods Marshall Libby was born. She was the only woman on the team that built the world’s first nuclear reactor, worked on the Manhattan Project, and was professor at New York University and UCLA
10th
Raksha Bandhan (Hindu) celebrates and honors the loving bond that exists between a brother and a sister.
In 1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second woman and 107th Justice to serve on the US Supreme Court
11th
Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, spoke before an audience in the North for the first time. During an anti-slavery convention on Nantucket Island, he gave a powerful, emotional account of his life as a slave. He was immediately asked to become a full-time lecturer for the Massachusetts Antislavery Society.
In 1929 Roots author Alex Haley was born. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, published in 1976, explored seven generations of his family from its origins in Africa through slavery in America and eventual hard-fought freedom
12th
King Philip's War ended with the assassination of Metacom, leader of the Pokanokets.
President Obama posthumously awards Harvey Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009
13th
Women's rights pioneer Lucy Stone was born in 1818. She dedicated her life to the elimination of slavery and the emancipation of women and aided in the founding of the American Suffrage Association.
Eva Dykes, first African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree, was born in 1893.
14th
Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper retires from active duty in the US Navy. She was the oldest officer still on active duty at the time of her retirement
Ethel Payne, called “The First Lady of the Black Press,” first African American female radio and television commentator at a national news organization, was born in 1911
15th
Aurora Castillo, community activist, co-founded Mothers of East Los Angeles which worked against a proposed prison and hazardous waste dump in East Los Angeles, was born in 1913.
Fay Knopp, pacifist and feminist, prison reformer, member of Women Strike for Peace, pioneered more humane treatment of prisoners based on compassion and a belief that people can change themselves, was born in 1918
16th
Martin Luther King Jr. protests for black voting right in Miami in 1961
Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863
17th
Birthday of Marcus Garvey (Rastafari), a Jamaican politician who foretold the crowning of a King in Africa, and instigated the “Black to Africa” movement.
Elaine Hedges, educator, helped create the field of Women’s Studies, founding member of the National Women’s Studies Association, founded the Women’s Studies Program at Towson University, one of the oldest programs in the country, writer and editor for The Feminist Press, was born in 1927
18th
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote.
Rosalynn Carter, U.S. First Lady, politically active while in the White House, focused on mental health, senior citizens, and community voluntarism, co-founded the Carter Center with her husband in 1982, was born in 1927
19th
Vera Weisbord, radical activist, labor organizer, and feminist, organized women textile worker strikes in the 1920s, and was active in the Civil Rights Movement, was born in 1895.
Donna Allen, founder of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press in 1972 to publicize and research women’s issues which she thought were ignored by the main stream media, was born in 1920.
20th
(1794) Battle of Fallen Timbers leading to the Treaty of Greeneville and the surrender of vast Indian lands west and north of the Ohio River.
President Andrew Johnson formally declares civil war over in 1866
21st
In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state
Marine James Anderson Jr. is the first African-American Medal of Honor winner in 1968
22nd
Ruth Underhill, anthropologist and professor, wrote of the Papago Native American culture, and taught in the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, was born in 1883
Althea Gibson becomes the first African-American competitor in a national tennis competition in 1950
23rd
Macario Garcia becomes the first Mexican national to receive a U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor in 1943
Fanny Farmer opens the "School of Cookery" in Boston, MA in 1902
24th
Amelia Earhart, was the first woman to fly across the United States in 1932
In 1912 Alaska becomes US territory
25th
Women's Equality Day- a day to look back on all women's rights issues and progress.
National Association of Colored Nurses forms in 1908
26th
19th Amendment (Woman Suffrage) ratified in 1920
Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run as a vice-presidential candidate for a major party, was born
27th
Del Martin dies (founded the first lesbian organization in the United States and fought for more than 50 years for the rights of lesbians and gays). She was married shortly before she died in California.
Clara Barton aids 30,000-mostly African-American-homeless victims of a hurricane on the Sea Islands of South Carolina.
28th
The March on Washington where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his now famous I Have a Dream speech.
Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born Saint, was born in 1774
29th
Temple Grandin was born
In 1758 the first Indian reservation was established
30th
Civil rights leader Roy Wilkins was born in 1901.
Lt. Col. Guion S. Bluford Jr. becomes the first African American astronaut in space in 1983
31st
The First International Symposium on Issues of Women with Disabilities is held in Beijing, China in combination with the Fourth World Conference on Women.
Josephine St Pierre Ruffin, an American publisher, journalist, suffragist and civil rights leader, was born in 1842