JULY 30

1863—President Abraham Lin­coln issues his famous “eye-for-an-eye” order. The order was basically a threat aimed at stopping the Con­federate practice of killing captured Black soldiers instead of imprisoning them. Lincoln threatened to kill one captured rebel soldier for every Black soldier killed by the Confederates. In addition, he pledged to condemn one captured rebel soldier to life in pris­on at hard labor for every captured Black soldier sold into slavery by the rebelling Southerners. The order did not stop the Confederate practice of killing captured Black soldiers, but it did have a restraining effect.

1945— Activist minister Adam Clay­ton Powell Jr. is elected to Congress from Harlem, N.Y., becoming one of only two Blacks in Congress. The oth­er was William Dawson o

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