Prominent social and civic leader in African American Seattle, Washington, Meredith Mathews was born in Thomaston, Georgia on September 14, 1919.  He attended public schools in Georgia and then moved to Ohio for college.  He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Wilberforce University in Xenia, Ohio in 1931.  He then pursued graduate studies at Ohio University.  

In 1937 Mathews began a lifelong association with Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) as Director of the racially segregated Spring Street YMCA in Columbus, Ohio.  He continued his professional career directing similar YMCAs in Oklahoma City and McAlester, Oklahoma.

Mathews arrived in Seattle in October 1957 after being named Executive Director of the East Madison YMCA. This “Y” served the mostly African American community of central Seattle.  The fund raising and business management skills he had developed in Oklahoma were used to expand services, memberships, and programs at this Seattle branch.  A new facility was built in 1965 after a successful Capital Funds Campaign under his leadership.  That facility continues to house the YMCA. 

In 1965 Matthews was appointed Associate Executive of the Pacific Northwest Area Council of YMCAs.  In 1971 he was named Regional Executive of the Pacific Region of YMCAs and was responsible for oversight of 126 facilities and programs in 11 states.  He retired in 1976 after 39 years of outstanding service to the YMCA. 

Mathews was involved in other civic and social organizations in Seattle. In the 1960s he was active with the Central Area Committee for Civil Rights (CACRC), an organization of leaders and activists who directed the civil rights movement in Seattle.  He served on the boards of the Seattle Urban League and the Randolph Carter Family and Learning Center named after his friend, social worker Randolph Carter.  He was a Mason and at the time of his death, he was the oldest living member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity in the Seattle area. In 1965 he was one of 11 founding members of the Alpha

Birthday of William Tucker, the first African child born in the colonies. Tucker was baptized in Jamestown, Virginia. There are unconfirmed reports that he lived to be 108 yrs. old.

Howard University students seized administration building. Students were demanding campus reform and Black-oriented curriculum. Civil rights forces mobilized in support of striking hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina.

Singer Nathaniel Nat King Cole, born in Mongomery, Alabama.

Earl Warren , (born March 19, 1891, Los Angeles, Calif.

The New Negro Theater is founded in Los Angeles, California by Langston Hughes.

During World War II, Lydia Sims moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Spokane with her husband, James Sims, an Army Air Force soldier stationed at Geiger Airfield.  At the end of the war, the Sims family decided to remain in Spokane.  For 10 years they lived in the Garden Springs housing project, a complex in west Spokane inhabited primarily by former military families. There they raised their sons, James McCormick and twins Ron and Donald.  Lydia Sims’s political views were strongly influenced by racial discrimination, which she vehemently opposed. In the 1960s, as a student at Eastern Washington University, she participated in a movement to desegregate schools in Cheney, Washington.  Later, she served on the state’s Human Rights Coalition, the League of Women Voters, the Human Rights Council, and the Washington State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.  

In the late 1960s, she became personnel director of the Spokane Community Action Council, an agency that managed Head Start and various community centers.  In 1975 she became the city’s affirmative action specialist, and in 1976 joined the newly established Spokane City Affirmative Action Department.  She was eventually appointed human resources director for the city of Spokane, the first African American department manager in that city’s history.  In this position Sims helped African Americans, women, and other minority groups find opportunities in Spokane’s job market.  In the 1980s, Sims became the first African American female branch president of the Spokane National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

After serving in the military, James Sims, who had a bachelor’s degree from Lincoln University and a master’s in history from Gonzaga University, applied for a position with the Washington state Office of Community Development.  Although he excelled in the civil service exam for the position, the state denied Sims the job.  Sims enlisted the help of renowned Spokane civil rights attorney Carl Maxey and sued the state.

Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes (Placido), poet, is born in Havana Cuba

James B. Parsons becomes the first African American chief judge of a federal court, the U.S. District Court of Chicago. In 1961, Parsons became the first African American district court judge

Ornette Coleman, saxophonist, born

One of twelve children, Mabley was born Loretta Mary Aiken on March 19, 1894 to businessman and volunteer firefighter James Aiken and Mary Smith, a stay-at-home mother in Brevard, North Carolina.

The shoe-lasting machine invented by Jan Matzeliger not only revolutionized the shoe industry but also made Lynn, Massachusetts, the shoe capital of the world.

Born in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, Matzeliger found employment in the government machine works at the age of 10. Eight years later he immigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where he worked in s shoe factory. He later moved to New England, settling permanently in Lynn. The Industrial Revolution had by this time resulted in the invention of machines to cut, sew, and tack shoes, but none had been perfected to last a shoe. Seeing this, Matzeliger lost little time in designing and patenting just such a device, one which he refined over the years to a point where it could adjust a shoe, arrange the leather over the sole, drive in the nails, and deliver the finished product- all in one minutes time.

Matzeligers patent was subsequently bought by Sydney W. Winslow, who established the United Shoe Machine Company. The continued success of this business brought about a 50% reduction in the price of shoes across the nation, doubled wages, and improved working conditions for millions of people dependent on the shoe industry for their livelihood.

Matzeliger died when only 37, long before he had the chance to realize a share of the enormous profit derived from his invention.

T. J. Boyd, inventor, is awarded a patent for an apparatus for detaching horses from carriages.

Congressman Thaddeus Stevens called resolution providing for the enforcement of the Second Confiscation Act of July, 1962. The measure, which provided for the distribution of public and confiscated land to the freedmen, was defeated.

Sarah Gertrude Millin , née Liebson (born March 19, 1888, Žagarė, Lithuania, Russian Empire—died July 6, 1968, Johannesburg, South Africa), South African writer whose novels deal with the problems of South African life.