1 July
- 1899 Thomas A. Dorsey Is Born Composer Thomas A. Dorsey, the 'Father of Gospel Music,' is born in Villa Rica, Georgia.
2 July
- 1908 Thurgood Marshall Is Born Thurgood Marshall is born in Baltimore, Maryland.
- 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Is Signed President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and ending segregation in public accommodations.
3 July
- 1950 Hazel Scott Hosts Her Own TV Show Pianist Hazel Scott becomes the first Black American to host a nationally broadcast television show.
4 July
- 1881 Tuskegee Institute Opens Booker T. Washington opens Tuskegee Normal School in Alabama with 30 students in a one-room church.
5 July
- 1852 Frederick Douglass: 'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?' Frederick Douglass delivers his searing oration in Rochester, asking what the nation's independence day means to the enslaved.
6 July
- 1957 Althea Gibson Wins Wimbledon Althea Gibson becomes the first Black champion at Wimbledon.
7 July
- 1906 Satchel Paige Is Born Legendary pitcher Satchel Paige is born in Mobile, Alabama.
8 July
- 1876 The Hamburg Massacre White paramilitary 'Red Shirts' attack Black militiamen and residents of Hamburg, South Carolina, killing several in a campaign of political terror.
9 July
- 1868 The 14th Amendment Is Ratified The 14th Amendment is ratified, granting citizenship to all persons born in the United States and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.
10 July
- 1893 Daniel Hale Williams Performs Pioneering Heart Surgery Surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performs one of the first successful operations on the human pericardium at Provident Hospital, which he founded.
11 July
- 1905 The Niagara Movement Is Founded W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter convene Black leaders near Niagara Falls to demand full civil and political rights.
12 July
- 1976 Barbara Jordan Electrifies the Democratic Convention Barbara Jordan becomes the first Black woman to deliver a keynote address at a major party's national convention.
13 July
- 1863 The New York City Draft Riots Mobs protesting the Civil War draft turn their violence on Black New Yorkers, lynching residents and burning the Colored Orphan Asylum.
14 July
- 1885 Sarah E. Goode Receives a Patent Inventor Sarah E. Goode is granted a U.S. patent for a folding cabinet bed, among the first patents awarded to a Black woman.
15 July
- 1961 Forest Whitaker Is Born Actor and director Forest Whitaker is born in Longview, Texas.
16 July
- 1862 Ida B. Wells Is Born Journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells is born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
17 July
- 2014 Eric Garner Is Killed Eric Garner dies after a New York police officer places him in a chokehold; his words 'I can't breathe' become a rallying cry.
- 2020 John Lewis Dies Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis dies at 80, decades after leading marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
18 July
- 1863 The 54th Massachusetts Assaults Fort Wagner The Black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry lead a courageous, costly assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina.
19 July
- 1848 Frederick Douglass at Seneca Falls Frederick Douglass, the only Black participant at the Seneca Falls Convention, speaks in support of women's suffrage.
20 July
- 1967 The National Conference on Black Power Roughly a thousand delegates convene in Newark for the National Conference on Black Power, weeks after the city's uprising.
21 July
- 1896 The National Association of Colored Women Is Founded Black women's clubs unite in Washington to form the National Association of Colored Women, electing Mary Church Terrell president.
22 July
- 1939 Jane Bolin Becomes the First Black Woman Judge Jane Bolin is sworn in as a judge of New York City's domestic relations court, the first Black woman judge in the United States.
23 July
- 1900 The First Pan-African Conference Opens in London Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams convenes the first Pan-African Conference in London.
24 July
- 1802 Alexandre Dumas Is Born Novelist Alexandre Dumas, grandson of an enslaved Haitian woman, is born in France.
25 July
- 1972 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study Is Exposed An Associated Press story reveals that the U.S. Public Health Service had for 40 years withheld treatment from Black men with syphilis in Tuskegee.
26 July
- 1948 Truman Desegregates the Armed Forces President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981, ordering equal treatment and opportunity in the U.S. military.
27 July
- 1919 The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 The drowning of a Black teenager who drifted into a 'white' area of a Chicago beach ignites days of violence that leave 38 dead.
28 July
- 1917 The Silent Parade Roughly 10,000 Black New Yorkers march down Fifth Avenue in silence to protest lynchings and the East St. Louis massacre.
29 July
- 1895 The First National Conference of Colored Women Black women leaders gather in Boston for the first national conference of Black women's clubs.
30 July
- 1866 The New Orleans Massacre of 1866 White mobs and police attack a Black-and-Republican convention in New Orleans, killing dozens of Black delegates and supporters.
31 July
- 1874 Patrick Healy Leads Georgetown Patrick Francis Healy is inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, the first person of acknowledged African descent to head a major predominantly white university.