On This Date in Minnesota History: December 19

December 19, 1957 – “Governor Orville L. Freeman appointed L. Howard Bennett to a municipal judgeship in Minneapolis, making him the first African American judge appointed in Minnesota.”

http://www.thehistorypeople.com/data/docs/timeline-part2.pdf

After his campus appearance in 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. was interviewed by L. Howard Bennett, a local civil rights leader and the first African American judge in Minnesota, for local educational television. The video may be seen through MN Video Vault, a project of Twin Cities Public Television.

http://www.minnesotaalumni.org/s/1118/content.aspx?sid=1118&gid=1&pgid=3147&cid=5180&ecid=5180&ciid=24984&crid=0