Freedom Calendar 03/03/07 - 03/10/07

March 3, 1865, Republican Congress establishes Freedmen’s Bureau to provide health care, education, and technical assistance to emancipated slaves.

March 4, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower appoints J. Ernest Wilkins to serve as first African-American U.S. Asst. Secretary of Labor.

March 5, 1875, Blanche Bruce (R-MS) becomes first African-American to serve full term in U.S. Senate; in 1879 he was first African-American to preside over Senate.

March 6, 1857, Republican Supreme Court Justice John McLean issues strenuous dissent from decision by 7 Democrats in infamous Dred Scott case that African-Americans had no rights “which any white man was bound to respect”.

March 7, 1965, Police under the command of Democrat Governor George Wallace attack African-Americans demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, AL.

March 8, 1990, Republican Evan J. Kemp appointed by President George H. W. Bush as Chairman of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; first person with a disability to serve on the Commission.

March 9, 1926, Republican Bertha K. Landes elected Mayor of Seattle; first woman to be mayor of a U.S. city.

March 10, 1975, President Gerald Ford appoints Republican Carla Hills as first woman to be U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; later first woman to be U.S. Trade Representative, appointed by President George H. W. Bush.

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

Frederick Douglass, Republican Civil Rights Activist

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