Bandleader and composer Frank Johnson becomes the first African American to win critical acclaim overseas during his trip to Europe and the first American of any race to take a musical ensemble abroad to perform in Europe. Johnson was presented with a silver bugle following his command performance for Queen Victoria.

Canada gives Black citizens the right to vote.

P.B.S. Pinchback was born on this date in Georgia. Pichback held office as governor of the state of Louisiana for one month. He was the first Black to serve as a governor of a state in the United States. He also helped establish Southern University by pushing for a college for Blacks in Louisiana.

Abolitionist Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy is murdered in Alton, Illinois by an angry mob. Lovejoy is the editor of the Alton Observer, an abolitionist newspaper. He dies defending the arrival of a new printing press. The mobs had previously destroyed three previous presses. There are no convictions for his murder.

Orator and abolitionist Wendell Phillips delievered an anti-slavery speech on this date in Boston denouncing the murder of Rev. Elijah Lovejoy.