Freedom Calendar 03/22/08 - 03/29/08

March 22, 1871, Spartansburg Republican newspaper denounces Ku Klux Klan campaign to eradicate the Republican Party in South Carolina.

March 23, 1823, Birth of Schuyler Colfax (R-IN), who as Speaker of the House broke precedent to vote for Republicans’ constitutional amendment banning slavery; later served as Vice President.

March 24, 1902, Birth of Thomas Dewey (R-NY), who as Governor introduced nation’s first statewide civil rights law; Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948.

March 25, 1864, Death of U.S. Rep. Owen Lovejoy (R-IL), abolitionist and co-founder of Republican Party in Illinois.

March 26, 1910, President Taft appoints Republican William Lewis as first African-American U.S. Asst. Attorney General.

Easter Sunday, March 27, 1856, First meeting of Republican National Committee in Washington, DC to oppose Democrats’ pro-slavery policies.

March 28, 1870, Republican Jonathan Wright of South Carolina becomes first African-American state Supreme Court Justice.

March 29, 1885, Birth of U.S. Rep. Frances Payne Bolton (R-OH), first woman to serve as U.S. Delegate to United Nations General Assembly.

"Discrimination against the negro race in this country is unjust, is unworthy of a high-minded people whose example should have a salutary influence in the world.”

Rep. Joseph Rainey (R-SC), the first African-American in the U.S. House of Representatives (1870-79)

Technorati Tags: President Bush and Freedom Calendar or Booker T. Washington and Republicans or African-Americans and Brown v. Board of Education or Ronald Reagan and Condoleezza Rice or Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass or 40 acres and a mule or Martin Luther King and Voting Rights Act of 1965 or Dred Scott