PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP)—It took First Lady Michelle Obama two swings to smash open the sparkling wine she used to christen a ship in honor of the Coast Guard’s first female commissioned officer. The ceremony July 23 in Pascagoula, Miss., just south of the Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding facility, where the cutter was built drew about 3,000. Obama praised Capt. Dorothy C. Stratton as a pioneer, saying: “I stand in awe of her life.”

CHRISTENING—First lady Michelle Obama breaks a bottle of sparkling wine on the bow of the third U.S. Coast Guard National Security cutter Stratton (WMSL 752) in Pascagoula, Miss., as Mike Petters, president of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, looks on.

Stratton joined up during World War II and eventually oversaw more than 10,000 enlisted women and 1,000 commissioned officers. She earned the Legion of Merit before leaving the Coast Guard in 1946 and died in 2006.

The ship will be delivered next summer and patrol waters off northern California on two-month missions. It will be able to deploy two helicopters and smaller boats.

July 29

1870—Pioneering boxer George Dixon is born in Nova Scotia, Canada. Dixon had an absolutely amazing boxing career. He pioneered much of modern boxing including training techniques such the suspended punching bag and shadow boxing. He was the first Black to win a world boxing title.

GEORGE DIXON

He was known as “Little Chocolate” because he stood only 5-3 tall and weighed around 90 pounds. Despite his diminutive size he won 78 fights—30 by knockout. He was known for his lighting fast speed. Dixon died in New York in 1909. He is buried in Boston, Mass.

by Brian E. Muhammad and Richard B. Muhammad

Though called by other names, poor Blacks are kept in bondage today in the United States

COLUMBIA, S.C. (NNPA) - Nearly 150 years after Emancipation, trapped by extreme poverty, isolation, fear and shame, some Blacks remain victims of neo-slavery in rural areas of the South, locked into work in fields, factories and assorted industries.

While not bought and sold at auction block, these poor Blacks are forced to work, live in shacks, often have no indoor plumbing and are often trapped in peonage, tied to land where they owe owners debts that are never repaid, according to an activist and researcher. Some Blacks are even forced to pay rent to White landowners for dilapidated housing but are fearful of identifying landlords and owners.

by David Espo

WASHINGTON (AP)—Far-reaching legislation aimed at reining in Wall Street marks the latest and likely the last major achievement by President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, an 18-month partnership that strove simultaneously to fix a battered economy and enact sweeping changes to health care, education and more.

MADAME SPEAKER—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., center, reaches out to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., left, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., right after signing the financial reform legislation bill on Capitol Hill, July 15.

Whatever the longer term impact—the most far-reaching changes in the health care legislation won’t start until 2014—the immediate aftermath is unemployment that scrapes double digits and deficits far deeper than Obama and his allies inherited in January 2009.

The Republicans who worked ceaselessly to thwart the president’s agenda are emboldened, while Democrats who voted it into law brace for majority-threatening election losses.