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Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers

Baltimore Afro-American, February 19, 1910 - Ida Cummings

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February - Archived Posts
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February 1, 1980: Atlanta Daily World on Carter G. Woodson and articles from 1926-27 on first “Negro History Week.”
February 2, 1936: Atlanta Daily World and black press editorial cartoons on Ethiopian anti-colonial battle against Italy.
February 3, 1948: Atlanta Daily World on efforts to block black voting rights on anniversary of passage of 15th Amendment.
February 4, 1956: Pittsburgh Courier on Montgomery Bus Boycott, in honor of Rosa Parks’ birthday.
February 5, 1977: New York Amsterdam News, “Roots Captivates Millions of T-Viewers.”
February 6, 1982: Cleveland Call & Post advertisement for Wilber Black, the (Jheri) “Kurl King” and Black’s Pride Hair Care Center.
February 7, 1944: Los Angeles Tribune ad for “Sweet ’n’ Hot” revue featuring Dorothy Dandridge.
February 7, 1948: Cleveland Call and Post editorial cartoon on segregation of University of Oklahoma Law School and Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher.
February 8, 1964: New York Amsterdam News covers NYC school boycott, the largest civil rights protest in U.S. history.
February 9, 1935: Selection of articles from Norfolk Journal and Guide on anti-lynching work, Negro History Week, Imitation of Life, and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
February 10, 1959: Philadelphia Tribune reports on voter registration efforts in the city.
February 11, 1928: Valentine’s Day wishes from the Chicago Defender Junior.
February 12, 1949: “Grow Old With Me” short story in Baltimore Afro-American.
February 13, 1960: Greensboro sit-in protests in Norfolk Journal and Guide and Cleveland Call and Post.
February 14, 1946: Los Angeles Sentinel on fire in Fontana that killed O’Day, Helen, Barry, and Carol Ann Short.
February 15, 1975: Pittsburgh Courier editor-in-chief Hazel Garland on professional opportunities for retired black athletes and lack of black television news anchors.
February 16, 1965: Chicago Defender on the death of Nat King Cole.
February 17, 1979: Ad for The Warriors in New York Amsterdam News, and article by Amsterdam News intern Nelson George.
February 18, 1944: Atlanta Daily World on Harry Alpin, the first African-American reporter to cover a White House press conference.
February 19, 1910: Clubwoman Ida Cummings in the Baltimore Afro-American.
February 20, 1969: “Bowling Around L.A” by Los Angeles Sentinel columnist Juanita Blocker.
February 21, 1970: Black journalists’ statement of support for the New York Times’ Earl Caldwell and his right to protect confidential sources in the Black Panther Party.
February 22, 1965: The black press on the murder of Malcolm X.
February 23, 1957: Philadelphia Tribune on Thomas Edison (formerly Northeast) High School and how board moved school to create segregated facility.
February 24, 1934: Carter G. Woodson in Pittsburgh Courier on “Forgotten Negroes.”
February 25, 1939: Blanche Thompson, Irvin C. Miller, and “Brown Skin Models” revue in Norfolk Journal and Guide.
February 26, 1949: Baltimore Afro-American on Satchel Paige and other black major league baseball players heading to spring training.
February 27, 1937: New York Amsterdam News on Dr. Anna Cooper Johnson’s new dental office in Harlem.
February 28, 1978: Philadelphia Tribune on MOVE conflict with Philadelphia authorities eight years before bombing.
February 29, 1956: Chicago Defender on Leap Year tradition of single women courting bachelors.
February 19, 1910 On February 19, 1910, the Baltimore Afro-American noted that the Empty Stocking and Fresh Air Circle had elected officers. In addition to electing five (!) vice presidents, Ida Cummings was elected president of the social and charitable organization. Cummings was president of Empty Stocking and Fresh Air Circle for over two decades, and her name appears in the Afro-American dozens of time in the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1906, Cummings wrote a piece for the newspaper describing how the club worked over the summer to bring “joy and happiness to more than 275 people mostly children.” By 1925, the Afro-American described the Empty Stocking club as an “institution and indispensable part of our city.” The paper continued: “The citizens of Baltimore realize that in the service of these ladies is the sacrifice of self for the good of our future race.“ The newspaper noted that Cummings and the group played a particularly important role at Christmas time: “Following their usual custom of the past twenty years the Empty Stocking Club, of which Mrs. Ida Cummings is president, played Santa to a host of children that crowded the Metropolitan M.E. Church to the doors.”

The African American Registry website describes Cummings this way:
Ida Rebecca Cummings was born on this date in 1867. She was an African American educator, organization leader, and clubwoman.

From Baltimore, Maryland, her father was a hotel chef and catering business owner; her mother operated a boarding house at their home. Cummings was raised in an environment that stressed learning, Black unity, and community service. The family church, Metropolitan Methodist, was a station stop with Underground Railroad and offered literacy classes before the city allowed Black public schools. This atmosphere was a large part of the children’s place of academia in their early years. The Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order of Black nuns, were Cummings’s first teachers.

She later attended Hampton Institute and Morgan State College; where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1922. Cummings began teaching primary school in 1900, moving to specialized courses in her home city and Chicago. Affectionately called “Miss Ida” by her students, Cummings taught for thirty-seven years. While teaching, she participated in organizations that worked to improve housing, health care, and education for poor children. In 1904, she and other members of the Colored YMCA established the Colored Empty Stocking and Fresh Air Circle.

They provided Christmas stockings to children who would otherwise have no gifts. The organization also aided in a healthier environment for these children by paying for boarding for them in rural homes during the summer. From 1912 to 1914, Cummings was secretary of the National Association of Colored Women and chair of the planning committee for its annual convention. She was a trustee of Bennett College, the first woman trustee of Morgan State College, and served as president of the Republican Woman’s League. Ida Cummings died in November 1958.