1930 The United States: Notable Deaths

Notable Deaths

*There were 20 recorded lynchings in the United States in 1930.

*Rufus Herve Bacote, a prominent physician in Kentucky and Tennessee who served as a First Lieutenant and an army doctor in the 370th Infantry Regiment of the 93rd Division during World War I, died in Earlington, Kentucky (October 13).

Rufus Herve Bacote (b. July 1, 1890, Timmonsville, South Carolina – d. October 13, 1930, Earlington, Kentucky) Bacote was born in Timmonsville, South Carolina, in a town ten miles from Florence South Carolina. He lived in an area mostly designated for agriculture. He was born to M.T. Bacote and Hattie Jackson of South Carolina. His father was a farmer. Rufus was the second oldest of four children. In 1917, Bacote graduated from Meharry Medical College,  in Nashville, at the age of 27. Bacote registered for the World War I draft in May 1917.

In 1917, Dr. Bacote began military service as a first lieutenant in the Army Reserve Corps and reported to the Fort Des Moines Medical Officers Training camp in Iowa. After remaining in the camp for 46 days , Bacote transferred first to Camp Funston (in Kansas), then to Camp Logan (in Houston, Texas).  Bacote was assigned to the 370th Infantry Regiment of the 93rd Division, which was mostly comprised of African-American soldiers of the Old 8th Illinois National Guard. Bacote was commissioned as a First Lieutenant and assigned as a medical doctor.

Fearing the threat of race riots coming from Camp Logan, Bacote and his unit were sent to France on the USS President Grant in 1918.  General Pershing assigned a majority of the African American troops over to the French who had been requesting American assistance. Bacote fought alongside fellow medical school graduates, such as George Washington Antoine and Claudius Ballard.

Bacote experienced minimal injuries during the war and had to deal with patients experiencing gassing effects and serious illness from the conditions. In 1918, Bacote was discharged.

After being discharged, Bacote returned to Nashville in the Davidson County with his wife. Later, after hearing from his medical school that there were shortages of physicians, the Bacotes moved to Kentucky where Bacote practiced medicine. In 1920, he moved again to Earlington, Kentucky. Dr. Bacote remained in Earlington and practiced there until his death in 1930.

Dr. Bacote married Amanda Bacote shortly after his graduation from medical school in 1917. The couple remained childless. 

In 1930, Dr. Bacote died of kidney disease. His body was moved to Nashville and buried.

After his death, Mrs. Bacote moved to Chicago and was heavily involved in the Pilgrim Baptist Church School there until her death.

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*Edward Willard Bates, a prominent African-American who served as a physician and surgeon in the 368th Ambulance Company in the 317th Sanitary (Medical) Train of the 92nd Division during World War I, died in Los Angeles, California (August 7).  For his bravery in battle, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC).

Edward Bates (b. November 4 {5?}, 1884, Dallas, Texas – d. August 7, 1930, Los Angeles, California)  was born on November 4, 1884 to John W. and Tyria Norwood Bates in Dallas, Texas.
Both of Bates' parents were Texas natives and were well involved in the local Baptist community. This was more defined by Bates when he entered Bishop College which was located in Marshall, Texas. Bishop College is a historically black university which relocated to Dallas in the late 20th century. It remained open until 1988 due to a scandal which forced the institution to close. Bates did not end his education there as he soon entered Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.  He was a classmate and later fellow soldier of Dr. Everett R. Bailey. According to a the commencement pamphlet released on the day of his graduation on April 14, 1910, Bates was a class orator for the medical school graduates. Though Bates was listed to be from Dallas, he soon relocated to Louisville, Kentucky, and opened a medical practice in 1912. However, his time in Louisville reminded Bates of the systematic racism that still existed despite his advanced education.

In 1917, the United States had joined World War I to help the Allies. The United States military urged physicians to sign up due to the shortage, and when Bates was 33 years old he volunteered for service.

Like the majority of the African-American recruits, Bates was sent for basic training at Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School.  He was commissioned with the rank of First Lieutenant.  Fort Des Moines had been opened for training African-American men as there had been a huge influx of African-American volunteers and a petition had been initiated by the students of Howard University calling for the use of African American troops.  However, despite the hope for a new recognition and appreciation, there was still discontent at the facility as many soldiers found that they were being unfairly assessed for merely being black. After being trained, Bates was assigned to the 368th Ambulance Company of the 317th Sanitary (Medical Train) of the 92nd Division.

Once in France, the 92nd Division was essentially assigned to France to assist the French troops, as General Pershing did not want to utilize the African-American soldiers. The French were extremely relieved at the reinforcements as the Germans were hitting them aggressively. Soon after arriving in France, Dr. Bates's surgical abilities were questioned by the Lieutenant Colonel. According to records, Bates had scored around 50% on his military and medical subjects back in the United States, which made the Lieutenant Colonel want to re-evaluate Bates before sending him into the field. Bates retook the exam and proved his ability and was soon sent over to the Gas Defense School. 

The troops in France were facing repeated gas attacks from the Germans. In early October 1918, a couple weeks before the war ended, the entire Division was sent over to the Marbache sector in France and faced an aggressive assault by the Germans. Lieutenant Bates proved his capability during the attack.  One of the company commanders, a Captain Kennedy, had been gassed and wounded.  He was in the Aide Station when the German assault began.  Despite enduring intense shell fire,Lieutenant Bates helped to carry Captain Kennedy from the Aide Station to the Ambulance Station. For this meritorious service, the next day Captain Kennedy recommended Lieutenant Bates for the Distinguished Service Cross.

When the war concluded, Bates moved back to Louisville to continue his medical practice.

Bates died unexpectedly in his home on August 7, 1930. It was reported in the Chicago Defender that Bates died of a heart attack, however, an autopsy revealed that he died from a combination of mitral stenosis and nephritis (kidney disease).

Bates married Sadie B. Bates after he returned from the war and they remained together until his death in 1930. 

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*Alexander Bedward, the namesake founder of Bedwardism, was born in Saint Andrew, a rural parish north of Kingston, Jamaica, died.

Alexander Bedward (b. 1848 in St. Andrew, a rural parish north of Kingston, Jamaica - d. 1930) , the founder of Bedwardism, was one of the most successful preachers of Jamaican Revivalism. After spending time in Panama, Bedward returned to Jamaica and was baptized by a local Baptist preacher.  He became not merely leader of a Revival branch but of a new movement, the Bedwardites, with affiliated groups all over Jamaica and in Panama. In the 1880, he started to gather large groups of followers by conducting mass healing services. He identified himself with Paul Bogle, the Baptist leader of the Morant Bay rebellion. In this connection, he advocated for changes and developments in the race relations in Jamaican society.

Bedward was arrested for sedition but instead of being sent to prison was sent to a mental asylum instead.  On release, he continued his role as a Revival healer and preacher. He urged his followers to be self-sufficient and at its height the movement gathered about 30,000 followers.  Bedward led his followers into Garveyism by finding the charismatic metaphor: Bedward and Garvey were as Aaron  and Moses, one the high priest, the other the prophet,  both leading the children of Israel out of exile.

Later Bedward proclaimed that he was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and that, like Elijah, he would ascend into heaven in a flaming chariot. He then expected to rain down fire on those that did not follow him, thereby destroying the whole world. In 1921, he and 800 followers marched in to Kingston "to do battle with his enemies." This, however, did not result in him flying to heaven. Bedward and his followers were arrested and he was sent to mental asylum for the second time where he remained to the end of his life.

Bedward's impact was that many of his followers became Garveyites and Rastafarians, bringing with them the experience of resisting the system and demanding changes of the colonial oppression and the white oppression.

*****

*Walter Cohen, a Republican politician and businessman, died in New Orleans, Louisiana (December 29).

Walter L. Cohen, Sr. (b. January 22, 1860, New Orleans, Louisiana – d. December 29, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana) was an African-American Republican politician and businessman in the United States State of Louisiana.  

The New Orleans native was the son of Bernard Cohen and the former Amelia Bingaman. Like his better-known compatriot Homer Adolph Plessy, Cohen was a free black prior to passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.   A Catholic, Cohen noted that he was part of the most-hated ethnic group and most-hated religious group by the resurging Ku Klux Klan.  

Educated in New Orleans, Cohen was married to the former Antonia Manadé, and the couple had three children: Walter Cohen, Jr., Bernard J. Cohen, and Margot C. Farrell.

Cohen's political activity mushroomed in the 1890s, after the Reconstruction era, when he became one of the few blacks to hold appointed office into the 20th century. United States President William McKinley named Cohen a customs inspector in New Orleans. McKinley's successor, Theodore Roosevelt, appointed him register of the federal land office. (Louisiana at the time elected a register of state lands, among them the first woman in statewide elected office in the 20th century, Lucille May Grace.)

Even when the African-American-dominated Black and Tan faction lost power after 1912 to the Lily-White Movement within the Republican Party, Cohen obtained the position of comptroller of customs by appointment from President Warren G. Harding. He succeeded A.W. Newlin as comptroller of customs.  The New York Times referred to the office as "one of the most lucrative federal offices" in the United States South.  Harding's successor, Calvin Coolidge, renewed Cohen's appointment.  Though he had been a delegate to all Republican National Conventions between 1896 and 1924, Cohen was later ousted as secretary of the Louisiana State Republican Central Committee and instead headed a dissenting group. In 1928, Cohen favored United States Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas for the Republican presidential nomination, but the party selection went nearly unanimously to Herbert Hoover, the outgoing secretary of commerce.  Curtis then became the Republican vice presidential nominee. In 1928, Coolidge offered Cohen the position of minister to Liberia, but he declined the offer.

A successful businessman, Cohen was the founder and president of the People's Life Insurance Company in New Orleans, a large industrial company whose clients were African Americans. Cohen was a member of Corpus Christi Catholic Church in New Orleans. He died in New Orleans and is interred there at St. Louis Cemetery III.

Cohen's death came some six years before African American voters began a longstanding shift in allegiance from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party with the re-election in 1936 of Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

*****

*Henry Creamer, the song lyricist best known for composing the lyrics for "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", died in New York City, New York (October 14). 

Henry Creamer (b. June 21, 1879, Richmond, Virginia – d. October 14, 1930, New York City, New York) was an African American popular song lyricist. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, and died in New York. He co-wrote many popular songs in the years from 1900 to 1929, often collaborating with Turner Layton, with whom he also appeared in vaudeville.

Henry Creamer was a singer, dancer, songwriter and stage producer/director. He first performed on the vaudeville circuit in the United States and in Europe as a duo with pianist Turner Layton, with whom he also co-wrote songs. Two of their most enduring songs, for which Creamer wrote the lyrics, are "After You've Gone" (1918), which was popularized by Sophie Tucker, and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (1922) which was included in the soundtrack for one of the dance numbers in the Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers 1939 movie The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.

Success on Broadway arrived in 1922 when Creamer’s Creole Production Company produced the show Strut Miss Lizzie, and in 1923 to seal their success, Bessie Smith recorded their song "Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time". His other Broadway stage scores include Three Showers. Creamer and Layton disbanded as a duo in 1924, when Layton relocated to Europe after which Creamer continued his songwriting with pianist James P. Johnson. In 1924, Creamer joined ASCAP.

In the fall of 1926, Creamer was commissioned to direct the Cotton Club revue, The Creole Cocktail. The show featured Lottie Gee, Loncia Williams. Henry and LaPearl, Louie Parker, White and Sherman, Eddie Burke, Ruby Mason and Albertine Pickens.

Also in 1926, Creamer and James P. Johnson wrote "Alabama Stomp". In 1930, they achieved another hit with "If I Could Be with You" which was recorded by Ruth Etting.  The song also became the theme song for McKinney's Cotton Pickers and was also a hit for Louis Armstrong.

Creamer was a co-founder with James Reese Europe of the Clef Club, an important early African American musicians and entertainers organization in New York City.

*****

*Andrew "Rube" Foster, a baseball player, manager, and pioneer executive in the Negro Leagues, died in Kankakee, Illinois (December 9). He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

Andrew "Rube" Foster (b. September 17, 1879, Calvert, Texas – d. December 9, 1930, Kankakee, Illinois), considered by historians to have been perhaps the best African-American pitcher of the first decade of the 1900s, also founded and managed the Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful black baseball teams of the pre-integration era. Most notably, he organized the Negro National League, the first long-lasting professional league for African-American ballplayers, which operated from 1920 to 1931. He is known as the "father of Black Baseball."

Foster adopted his longtime nickname, "Rube", as his official middle name later in life.

Foster dropped out of school after the eighth grade, and by the age of 18 he had begun playing semi-professional baseball in Texas for the Waco Yellow Jackets. In 1902 he joined Frank Leland’s Chicago Union Giants but soon left to play in an integrated semi-professional league in Michigan.
Standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 metres) tall, the large right-hander first made his mark on the game in 1903 as a pitcher for the Cuban X-Giants, winning four games (of a seven-game series) against the Philadelphia Giants in the “Colored Championship of the World.” The next year, as a member of the Philadelphia Giants, Foster earned his nickname by outdueling the great Rube Waddell in a game against the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League. In 1905 he totaled 51 victories out of 55 games played.
A dispute over money with the Philadelphia Giants led to Foster’s return to Chicago and the Leland Giants in 1907. As both star pitcher and manager, he guided the team to a 110–10 record that year. His style as a manager was no different from his style as a player—aggressive and intimidating. He was an innovative strategist, and his team members were renowned for their bunting and baserunning, especially the hit-and-run (in which the batter is signaled to hit a pitch regardless of its location and the base runner on first begins running before the pitch is released). In 1910 Foster acquired ownership of the Leland Giants and guided the squad to a 123–6 record.
The next year he joined with businessman John Schorling (a son-in-law of Charles Comiskey) to form the Chicago American Giants. The American Giants, led by Foster as player, manager, and owner, played at South Side Park and became one of the greatest teams in the history of black baseball, winning Negro League championships in 1914, 1915, and 1917, and the Negro National League championships in 1920, 1921 and 1922.
In Kansas City, Missouri, in 1920, Foster met with seven other owners of African American baseball clubs for the purpose of establishing the Negro National League. Although previous attempts to establish a league for black ballplayers and fans had failed, the Negro National League thrived under Foster’s guidance. As chief executive of the Negro National League, he curtailed the excessive trading of players to establish some parity of talent between the clubs. His dictatorial approach frequently enraged his fellow owners, despite his sacrifice of personal income to aid players and clubs with financial problems. In 1926 the strain of his work began to affect his mental health, and he was placed in a mental hospital in Kankakee, Illinois, where he died four years later.
Foster was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

*****

*Charles Gilpin, a noted stage actor who was the first African American to receive the Drama League of New York's annual award, died in Eldridge Park, New Jersey (May 6).

Charles Sidney Gilpin (b. November 20, 1878, Richmond, Virginia – d. May 6, 1930, Eldridge Park, New Jersey) was one of the most highly regarded stage actors of the 1920s. He played in critical debuts in New York: in the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln and played the lead role of Brutus Jones in the 1920 premier of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, also touring with the play. In 1920, he became the first African American to receive the Drama League of New York's annual award, as one of the ten people who had done the most that year for American theater.

Gilpin was born in Richmond, Virginia to Peter Gilpin and Caroline White.  He attended St. Francis RC School.  He started work as an apprentice in the Richmond Planet print shop before finding his career in theater. He first performed on stage as a singer at the age of 12. Gilpin worked as a teacher in 1920.

In 1896, at age 18, Gilpin joined a minstrel show, leaving Richmond and beginning a life on the road that lasted for many years. When between performances on stage, like many performers, he worked odd jobs to earn money: as a printer, barber, boxing trainer, and railroad porter.  In 1903, Gilpin joined Hamilton, Ontario's Canadian Jubilee Singers.

In 1905, he started performing with traveling musical troupes of the Red Cross and the Candy Shop of America. He also played his first dramatic roles and honed his character acting in Chicago. He performed with Robert Mott's Pekin Theater in Chicago for four years until 1911. Soon after, he toured the United States with the Pan-American Octetts.  Gilpin worked with Rogers and Creamer's Old Man's Boy Company in New York. In 1915, Gilpin joined the Anita Bush Players as it moved from the Lincoln Theater in Harlem to the Lafayette Theater. As New York theater was expanding, this was a time when the theatrical careers of many famous black actors were launched.

In 1916, Gilpin made a memorable appearance in whiteface as Jacob McCloskey, a slave owner and villain of Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon. Though Gilpin left Bush’s company over a salary dispute, his reputation allowed him to get the role of Rev. William Curtis in the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln.

Gilpin's Broadway debut led to his being cast in the premier of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones.  He played the lead role of Brutus Jones to great critical acclaim, including a lauded review by writer Hubert Harrison in Negro World. Gilpin's achievement resulted in the Drama League of New York's naming him as one of the 10 people in 1920 who had done the most for American theater. He was the first African American so honored. Following the Drama League’s refusal to rescind the invitation, Gilpin refused to decline it. When the League invited Gilpin to their presentation dinner, some people found it controversial. At the dinner, he was given a standing ovation of unusual length when he accepted his award. Although Gilpin continued to perform the role of Brutus Jones on the United States tour that followed the Broadway closing of the play, he had a falling out with O'Neill. Gilpin wanted O'Neill to remove the word "nigger", which occurred frequently in the play. The playwright refused, asserting its use was consistent with his dramatic intentions.

In 1921, Gilpin was awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. He was also honored at the White House by President Warren G. Harding.  A year later, the Dumas Dramatic Club (now the Karamu Players) of Cleveland renamed itself the Gilpin Players in his honor.

When they could not come to a reconciliation, O'Neill replaced Gilpin with Paul Robeson as Brutus Jones in the London production.

After the extended controversy and the disappointment of losing his signature role, Gilpin started drinking heavily. He never again performed on Broadway. He died in 1930 in Eldridge Park, New Jersey, his career in shambles. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, his funeral arranged by friends shortly after his death.

In 1991, 61 years after his death, Charles Sidney Gilpin was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

*****

*Archibald Grimke, a lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader who was the recipient of the Spingarn Medal in 1919, died in Washington, D. C. (February 25).

Archibald Henry Grimke (b. August 17, 1849, near Charleston, South Carolina - d. February 25, 1930, Washington, D. C.) was a graduate of freedmen's schools, Lincoln University and Harvard Law School.  He later was appointed American Consul to the Dominican Republic and served in that capacity from 1894 to 1898.  He was an activist for the civil rights of African Americans, working in Boston and Washington, D. C.  He was also a national vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as president of its Washington, D. C. branch. 

Grimké was born into slavery near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1849. He was the eldest of three sons of Nancy Weston, an enslaved woman of European and African descent, and her master Henry W. Grimké, a widower. They lived in a common-law relationship, and Grimke recognized his sons. Archibald's brothers were Francis and John. Grimké was a member of a prominent, large slaveholding family in Charleston. His father and relatives were planters and active in political and social circles.

After becoming a widower, Henry Grimké moved with Weston to his plantation outside Charleston where they lived together without social oversight. Henry was a father to his sons, teaching them and Nancy to read and write. During this period, as South Carolina discouraged manumissions by requiring slaveholders to petition the legislature for each case, it was nearly impossible to obtain manumissions. Accordingly, Grimke never freed Weston or their children, and was simply discreet about them.

In 1852, as he was dying, Henry Grimké tried to protect his second family by willing Nancy, who was pregnant with their third child, and their two sons Archibald and Francis to his son (by his first wife), and heir Montague Grimké. Henry directed that they "be treated as members of the family."

Henry's sister Eliza, executor of his will, brought the family to Charleston and allowed them to live as if they were free, but she did not aid them financially. Nancy Weston took in laundry and did other work.  When the boys were old enough, they attended a public school with free blacks. In 1860, Montague "claimed them as slaves," bringing the boys into his home as servants.  Later he hired out both Archibald and Francis. After Francis rebelled, Montague Grimké sold him. Archibald ran away and hid for two years with relatives until after the end of the Civil War. Montague never provided well for his half-brothers or for half-brothers' mother.

After the American Civil War ended, the three Grimké boys attended freedmen's schools, where their talents were recognized by the teachers. They gained support to send Archibald and Francis to the North. They studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, established for the education of African Americans.

By the time Henry began his relationship with Weston, his two youngest sisters, Sarah and Angelina, had been gone from Charleston for years. Opposed to slavery, Sarah and Angelina had left the South because of their views and became noted abolitionists and feminists. Collectively known as the Grimke sisters, they were active as writers and speakers in northern abolitionist circles, having joined the Quakers and the American Anti-Slavery Society.  After Angelina married Theodore Weld in Philadelphia, the three lived and worked for years in New Jersey. They operated a school together. In 1864, they moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, a new community outside Boston.

In February 1868, Angelina Grimke Weld read an article noting the talents of an ex-slave, Archibald Grimké, as a student at Lincoln. Noticing his surname, she followed up and learned that he was her brother's son, and about the rest of his family. She and Sarah acknowledged the boys and Nancy Weston as family, and tried to provide them with better opportunities. They paid for their nephews' education. The Grimkés introduced the young men to their abolitionist circles. The youngest son John dropped out of school and returned to the South, losing touch with his brothers and the Grimkes. However, the professors at Lincoln University found Archibald and Francis to be extraordinary students, and both Archibald and Francis graduated from Lincoln in 1870. Archibald and Francis went on to attend Harvard University and Howard University, respectively, for law.  Francis later shifted to Princeton Theological Seminary and became a minister. 

Francis J. Grimke did graduate work at Princeton Theological Seminary and became an ordained Presbyterian minister. He married Charlotte Forten, of the prominent Philadelphia black abolitionist family. She was also an abolitionist and a teacher, and became known for her diaries written mostly from 1854-1864. He headed the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C., for more than 40 years. Francis died in 1939.

The youngest brother, John Grimké, did not stay in school. He went to Florida and cut himself off from the Grimké families. He died in 1918.

After getting established with his law practice in Boston, Massachusetts, Archibald Grimké met and married Sarah Stanley, a white woman from the Midwest. They had a daughter, Angelina Weld Grimke, born in 1880. They separated while their daughter was young, and Stanley returned with Angelina to the Midwest when the girl was three. When Angelina was seven, Stanley started working. She brought Angelina back to her father in Boston. The couple never reconciled, and Stanley never saw her daughter again.  She committed suicide by poison in 1898.

In 1894, Grimké was appointed as consul to the Dominican Republic. While he was in Central America, his daughter Angelina lived for years with his brother Francis and his wife Charlotte in Washington, D. C., where Francis was minister of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church.

After graduating from school, Angelina became a teacher and writer. Her essays and poetry were published by The Crisis of the NAACP.  In 1916, she wrote the play, Rachel, which addressed lynching, in response to a call by the NAACP for works to protest the controversial film, Birth of a Nation. It is one of the first plays by an African American considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition, she wrote poetry, some of which is now considered the first lesbian work by an African American.

Grimké lived and worked in the Boston area most of his career. Beginning in the 1880s, he began to get active in politics and speaking out about the rise of white supremacy following the end of Reconstruction in the South. He was appointed editor of the Hub, a Republican newspaper that tried to attract black readers. Grimke supported equal rights for blacks, both in the paper and in public lectures, which were popular in the nineteenth century. He became increasingly active in politics, and was chosen for the Republican Party's state convention in 1884. That year he was also appointed to the board of a state hospital for the insane. Grimké became involved in the women's rights movement, which his aunts had supported, and addressed it in the Hub. He was elected as president of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.  Believing that the Republicans were not doing enough, he left the party in 1886. In 1889, he joined the staff of the Boston Herald as a special writer.

In the South, the situation for blacks was deteriorating, and Grimké continued the struggle against racism, allying at times with other major leaders of the day. He had also become involved in Frederick Douglass' National Council of Colored People, a predecessor to the NAACP, which grappled with issues of education for blacks, especially in the South. Grimké disagreed with Booker T. Washington about emphasizing industrial and agricultural education for freedmen (the South still had a primarily agricultural economy). He believed there needed to be opportunities for academic and higher education such as he had.

In 1901 with several other African American men, he started The Guardian, a newspaper in which they could express their views. They selected William Monroe Trotter as editor. Together Grimké and Trotter also organized the Boston Literary and Historical Association, which at the time was a gathering of men opposed to Washington's views. For a time he was allied with W. E. B. Du Bois, but Grimké continued to make his own way between the two groups.

Despite earlier conflict with Washington and his followers, in 1905, Grimké started writing for The Age, published in New York and the leading black paper -- a paper that was allied with Washington. He wrote about national issues from his own point of view, for instance, urging more activism and criticizing President Theodore Roosevelt for failing to adequately support black troops in Brownsville, Texas, where they were accused of starting a riot.

Continuing his interest in intellectual work, he served as president of the American Negro Academy from 1903 to 1919, which supported African American scholars and promoted higher education for blacks. He published several papers with them, dealing with issues of the day, such as his analysis in "Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States" (1908). He believed that capitalism as practiced in the United States could help freedmen who left agriculture to achieve independence and true freedom.

In 1907, Grimke became involved with the Niagara Movement started by Du Bois, and later with the NAACP which the latter also founded.  African Americans continued to struggle to find the best way to deal with racism and advance equal rights, at a time when lynching of black men in the South continued.

After his daughter graduated from college, Grimké became increasingly active as a leader in the NAACP, which was founded in 1909. First, he was active in Boston, for instance, writing letters in protest of proposed legislation in Washington, DC. to prohibit interracial marriages. (The legislation was not passed.) In 1913, he was recruited by national leaders to become the president of the Washington, D. C. branch and moved to the capital with his daughter Angelina. His brother Francis and his wife Charlotte still lived there.

Grimke led the public protest in Washington, D. C. against the segregation of federal offices under President Woodrow Wilson, who acceded to wishes of other Southerners on his cabinet. Grimké testified before Congress against it in 1914 but did not succeed in gaining changes. About this time, he also became a national vice-president of the NAACP. The organization supported the United States in World War I, but Grimké highlighted the racial discrimination against blacks in the military and worked to change it. 

In 1919, the NAACP awarded him the Spingarn Medal for his life work for racial equality.

Grimke fell ill in 1928. At the time, he and Angelina were living with his brother Francis, by then a widower. His daughter and brother cared for him until his death in 1930.

*****

*Willie Hall, a New Orleans blues and boogie woogie piano player, died.

Willie Hall (d. 1930), best known by his nickname Drive 'Em Down, never recorded, but has had a great influence on blues and rock and roll.  

According to Champion Jack Dupree, who called Drive 'Em Down his "father" and cited Hall as "teaching me his style", Hall played in barrelhouses. His earthy song, "Junker's Blues", with its stories about needles and reefer and the Angola prison farm was recorded by Dupree in 1940. In 1949 Fats Domino reworked the song as "The Fat Man", the first of Domino's 35 Top 40 hits. The melody was used by Professor Longhair for "Tipitina" and by Lloyd Price for "Lawdy Miss Clawdy." Willy DeVille recorded the song in 1990 on his Victory Mixture album. The song also directly inspired the song "Junco Partner", first recorded in 1951 by James Waynes and later also widely covered by other musicians.

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*Pauline Hopkins, a prominent African American novelist, journalist, playwright, historian and editor, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts (August 13). 

The first known work of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (b. 1859, Portland, Maine - d. August 13, 1930, Cambridge, Massachusetts), a musical play called Slaves’ Escape; or, The Underground Railroad (later revised as Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad), was first performed in 1880. Her short story "Talma Gordon", published in 1900, is often named as the first African-American mystery story. She explored the difficulties faced by African-Americans amid the racist violence of post-Civil War America in her first novel, Contending Forces A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South, published in 1900. She published three serial novels between 1901 and 1903 in the African-American periodical Colored American Magazine: Hagar's Daughter: A Story of Southern Caste Prejudice, Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest, and Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self. She sometimes used the pseudonym Sarah A. Allen. Her work reflects the influence of W. E. B. Du Bois and she is considered a pioneer in her use of the romantic novel to explore social and racial themes. 

Hopkins spent the remainder of her years working as a  stenographer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from burns sustained in a house fire.

In 1988, Oxford University Press released The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers with Professor Henry Louis Gates as the general editor of the series. Hopkins's novel Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South (with an introduction by Richard Yarborough) was reprinted as a part of this series. Hopkins's magazine novels (with an introduction by Hazel Carby) were also reprinted as a part of this series.

Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self is the last of four novels written by Pauline Hopkins. She is considered by some to be the most prolific African-American woman writer and the most influential literary editor of the first decade of the 20th century, though she is lesser known than many literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self first appeared in serial form in The Colored American Magazine in the November and December 1902 and the January 1903 issues of the publication, during the four-year period in which Hopkins served as its editor.

Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self tells the story of Reuel Briggs, a medical student who does not care about being black or appreciating African history but finds himself in Ethiopia on an archaeological trip. His motive is to raid the country of lost treasures, which he does find. However, he discovers much more than he expected: the painful truth about blood, race, and the half of his history that was never told. Hopkins wrote the novel intending, in her own words, to "raise the stigma of degradation from [the Black] race." The title, Of One Blood, refers to the biological kinship of all human beings.

*****

*A mob in Sherman, Texas, burned down a courthouse during the trial of George Hughes, an African-American man who was accused of assaulting his boss' wife, a white woman (May 9). The mob attacked the courthouse vault, retrieved the dead body of Hughes, dragged it behind an automobile and hanged it from a tree. National Guard troops were sent to Sherman to restore order as the mob looted stores in the African American business district.

*****
*James C. Matthews, the first African American law school graduate in New York, died in Albany, New York (November 1).

James Campbell Matthews (b. November 6, 1844, New Haven, Connecticut - d. November 1, 1930, Albany, New York) was an attorney and judge. He was notable as the first African American law school graduate in New York. He was elected a municipal judge in the late 1890s, which was the highest judicial office attained by an African-American up to that time.

James Matthews was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 6, 1844. His father was a barber, and the family moved to Albany when James Matthews was a boy.  His parents died in 1861, and Matthews was raised by Lydia Mott and Phebe Jones, two Albany anti-slavery activists who later worked in support of racial integration.

Though Albany's schools were segregated, Matthews succeeded in attending the public schools attended by white students. He then won a scholarship to The Albany Academy, and succeeded in winning acceptance despite the school's reluctance to accept a black student. Matthews was a stellar student, and graduated in 1864.

Matthews worked initially as a clerk at Albany's Congress Hotel, and was later employed as a bookkeeper. After deciding on a legal career, Matthews began studies at Albany Law School. He graduated in 1870, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Albany.

In 1875 Matthews married Adella Duplessis of New York City. They were the parents of a son, Charles D. Matthews.

Most African-Americans of the 1800s who were able to vote and participate in the political process joined the Republica Party, which was viewed favorably as having eliminated slavery during the Civil War.  Matthews was initially active as a Republican, but later became notable for his decision to join Albany's Democratic Party.

In 1885, President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, nominated Matthews to serve as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, a position previously held by Frederick Douglass.  He held the position by virtue of a recess appointment, but the United States Senate, then controlled by Republicans, refused to confirm him, claiming that he had attempted to coerce other African-Americans in Albany to switch their allegiance to the Democratic party in local elections.

Matthews won the election for Judge of Albany's Recorder’s Court in 1895. At the time, he took office, Matthews held the highest judicial position of any African-American up to that time. He served until 1899, when Albany's Republicans won the city elections and reclaimed control of the municipal government.

After leaving the bench, Matthews resumed the practice of law, and remained active until he retired in the early 1920s.

Matthews died in Albany on November 1, 1930.

Albany Law School's faculty includes an endowed professorship, the James Campbell Matthews Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence.

In 2013 Albany Law School inaugurated the James Campbell Matthews Lecture Series.

*****
*Irvine Penn, an educator, journalist and lay leader of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, died in Cincinnati, Ohio (July 22).
  
Irvine Garland Penn (b. October 7, 1867, New Glasgow, Virginia - d. July 22, 1930, Cincinnati, Ohio) was the author of The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, published in 1891, and a co-author, with Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and Ferdinand Lee Barnett, of The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbia Exposition in 1893. In the late 1890s, he became an officer in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he played an important role in advocating for the interests of African Americans in the church until his death.

Irvine Garland Penn was born on October 7, 1867, in New Glasgow, Virginia. He moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, at the age of 5. He entered the newspaper business before his senior year in high school, and finished high school some time later. He continued his education, eventually receiving a master's degree from Rust College in 1890 and a doctorate from Wiley College in 1908.
In 1886 he was a correspondent for the Richmond Planet, the Knoxville Negro World, and the New York Age, and he frequently wrote about African Americans. In 1886, he became editor of a small black paper called the Laborer. In 1887, he became teacher in Lynchburg. He was promoted to principal of the school in 1895.

Penn's writing became well known and frequently took on civil rights and injustice faced by African Americans. He published a volume of biographies of African American newspaper editors and journalists, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, in 1891. In 1893, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Ferdinand Lee Barnett, and Penn published a pamphlet, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbia Exposition, as part of a boycott by African Americans of the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition in response to segregation of African American exhibits. Two years later, he was the director and organizer for the African American exhibits at the 1895 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition,  and was important in the decision to put Booker T. Washington in a leading role, which partially launched Washington into the national spotlight.

In 1897, Penn moved to Atlanta to become Assistant General Secretary of the Epworth League for the Colored Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Penn was also the creator of the National Negro Young People's Christian and Educational Congress, and he taught at Rust College. He also continued to write and published another book, The College of Life in 1902.

In 1912, Penn moved to Cincinnati and became the co-corresponding secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In this position, he was frequently a fund raiser for Methodist Colleges, particularly Rust University, Morgan College, and Philander Smith College. Among his closest benefactors was James N. Gamble (son of James Gamble of Procter & Gamble). In the mid 1910s, Penn took part in a movement for unification of Methodist churches in America which sought to mend the rift between North and South Churches largely due to slavery. Penn and Robert E. Jones were the leading African American members of the Joint Commission on Unification of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The pair played dual roles in Methodist unification meetings in reassuring white delegates that they were not campaigning for racial social equality, but rather were working for the interests of black Methodists.

The Methodist Episcopal Church combined the black and white boards of education in 1924, removing Penn from his position as secretary of the Board of Education for Negroes. Penn's work was severely criticized, although he remained a member of the combined board.

Penn married Anna Belle Rhodes from Lynchburg in 1889. She graduated from Shaw University and taught there for several years. They had seven children.

Penn fell seriously ill in Cincinnati in early July, 1930, a few weeks after the death of his wife. He died of heart disease on July 22, 1930.

*****

*Pythias Russ, a Negro League Baseball star, died in Cynthiana, Kentucky (April 7). 

Pythias Russ (b. April 7, 1904, Cynthiana, Kentucky – d. August 9, 1930, Cynthiana, Kentucky) was a catcher, shortstop, and right-handed batter in the Negro Leagues whose career and life were cut short by illness.

Russ was a star college athlete in baseball, basketball, and track and field. He was named an All-American football player in 1924. Candy Jim Taylor signed him to play for the Memphis Red Sox for the 1925 season, where he split catching duties with Larry Brown and hit .327. He moved to the Chicago American Giants in 1926 and hit .268 that season. In 1927, Russ batted .350 and was 8 for 35 in the 1927 Colored World Series.

Russ switched to shortstop in 1928 and hit .405 to win the NNL batting title, and hit .407 in the postseason to help Chicago to the league championship. In 1929, he hit .386 to finish second in that category, and hit 11 triples. He fell ill with tuberculosis early in 1930 and died in August of that year. His lifetime batting average in the Negro Leagues was .350.

*****

*Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were lynched in Marion, Indiana (August 7).  There were hanged.  James Cameron survived. This would be the last recorded lynching of African Americans in the Northern United States. 

Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were African American men who were lynched on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana, after being taken from jail and beaten by a mob. They had been arrested that night as suspects in a robbery, murder and rape case. A third African American suspect, 16-year-old James Cameron, had also been arrested and narrowly escaped being killed by the mob.  He was helped by the intervention of an unknown woman and returned to jail. He was later convicted and sentenced as an accessory before the fact. After dedicating his life to civil rights activism, in 1991 he was pardoned by the state of Indiana.

The local chapter of the NAACP, and the State's Attorney General struggled to indict some of the lynch mob, but no one was ever charged for the murders of Shipp and Smith, nor the attack on Cameron.

The three suspects had been arrested the night before, charged with robbing and murdering a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his white girlfriend, Mary Ball, who was with him at the time.

A large crowd broke into the jail with sledgehammers, pulled out the three suspects, beating them and hanging them. When Abram Smith tried to free himself from the noose as his body was hauled up, he was lowered and men broke his arms to prevent any other efforts to free himself. Police officers in the crowd cooperated in the lynching. A third person, 16-year-old James Cameron, narrowly escaped death after being strung up, thanks to an unidentified woman who said that the youth had nothing to do with the rape or murder. A local studio photographer, Lawrence Beitler, took a photograph of the dead men hanging from a tree surrounded by the large lynch mob that included women and children. He sold thousands of copies of the photograph in the next ten days.

Mary Ball later testified that she had not been raped. According to Cameron's 1982 memoir, the police had originally accused all three men of murder and rape. After the lynchings, and Mary Ball's testimony, the rape charge was dropped.

James Cameron was tried in 1931 as an accessory before the fact, convicted and sentenced to state prison for several years. After being released on parole, he moved to Detroit, worked and went to college. In the 1940s he worked in Indiana as a civil rights activist and headed a state agency for equal rights. In the 1950s he moved to Wisconsin. There in 1988, in Milwaukee, he founded America's Black Holocaust Museum, devoted to African-American history.  Cameron intended it as a place for education and reconciliation.

Mrs. Flossie Bailey, a local NAACP official, and the State Attorney General worked to gain indictments against leaders of the mob in the lynchings, but were unsuccessful. No one was ever charged in the murders of Shipp and Smith, nor the assault on Cameron.

On the night of the lynching, studio photographer Lawrence Beitler took a photograph of the crowd by the bodies of the men hanging from a tree. He sold thousands of copies over the next 10 days, and it has become an iconic image of a lynching.  In 1937, Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from New York and the adoptive father of the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, saw a copy of Beitler's 1930 photograph. Meeropol later said that the photograph "haunted me for days" and inspired his poem "Strange Fruit". It was published in the New York Teacher in 1937 and later in the magazine New Masses,  in both cases under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. Meeropol set his poem to music, renaming it  "Strange Fruit". He performed it at a labor meeting in Madison Square Garden.  In 1939 it was performed, recorded and popularized by American singer Billie Holiday. The song reached 16th place on the charts in July 1939, and has since been recorded by numerous artists, continuing into the 21st century.

*****

*Mary Tate, the first American woman to serve as a Bishop in a nationally recognized denomination, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (December 28).

Mary Magdalena Lewis Tate ("Mother Tate") (b. January 3, 1871, Vanleer, Tennessee – d.  December 28, 1930, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an African American evangelist. She was the first American woman to serve as a Bishop in a nationally recognized denomination. She founded a Pentecostal denomination, The Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, in 1903. Its first convocation was held in June 1903 in Greenville, Alabama. The church was the first Pentecostal Holiness church in America founded by a woman, and spread to at least twenty states. At least seven denominations currently trace their history back to her church.

Mary Lena Street was born in Vanleer, Tennessee, on January 5, 1871. She was one of four sisters born to Belfield Street and Nancy (Hall) Street, and part of a larger extended family of nine children, including five half-brothers and half-sisters.

In 1889, at age nineteen, Mary Street married her first husband, David Lewis. They had two sons, Walter Curtis Lewis and Felix Earley Lewis. She is reported to have married and divorced twice more.

Mary Lewis began traveling and preaching in Steel Springs, Tennessee, and Paducah, Kentucky.  She was known as Saint Mary Magdalena.  She gathered people into informal "Do Rights" bands in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. She preached to both white and black audiences.

In 1903, Lewis led her followers in creating the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth in Greenville, Alabama. The name was taken from I Timothy, 3:15.  Following a period of illness, Lewis experienced a miraculous healing and the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues. From June 25 to July 5, 1908, she held a ten-day General Assembly there, a Pentecostal revival at which she formally incorporated the denomination. As the Overseer and Chief Leader of the Church, she presided as bishop, ordained ministers, and baptized converts in the "indwelling" of the Holy Ghost. The church spread rapidly, in response to the work of Lewis and her sons. By 1911, presiding elders were appointed.

In 1914, Street married Robert Tate, a deacon in the church. In June 1914, State Bishops were ordained for four states at the 1914 General Assembly, held in Quitman, Georgia.  Two of the bishops were Tate's sons.  At the same assembly, the church adopted Tate's first Decree Book, written to summarize the doctrines, rules, rituals and governance of the denomination, for use in its churches. A later edition of 1923 was titled the Constitution, Government, and General Decree Book.

By 1916, the group had spread to twenty states. In 1923, its headquarters were moved to Nashville, Tennessee.  There Tate established the New and Living Way Publishing Company to print religious literature and music. She is credited with writing many of the hymns used by the denomination.

In 1929, Tate identified Bishop Archibald Henry White as her successor in the Church. He was later elected Senior Bishop of all churches in Pennsylvania, incorporated under the name “House of God, Which is the Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of the Truth”.

Tate died on December 28, 1930 in Philadelphia General Hospital while on a visit Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Her death resulted from frostbite and gangrene in one of her feet, possibly complications of diabetes.  Her body was originally buried in a family plot in Dickson, Tennessee, but was moved in 1963 to Greenwood Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Following Tate's death, three major branches were created under the leadership of various relatives of Mother Tate.  These are currently known as the Keith Dominion, the Lewis Dominion, and the Jewell Dominion  (previously the McLeod Dominion). At least seven denominations can trace their history back to Tate's establishment of Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth.

Tate was a strong exponent of women's leadership.  She intentionally used generic language and mentored women for leadership positions. Hundreds of women served in The Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth as evangelists, ministers, and bishops.

Tate propounded an approach to living that emphasized "cleanness", as a principle underlying all aspects of life, including food, marriage, family life, and community activity. Her dogma of "The Cleanliness of the Word" was based on St. John 15:3.

*****

*Henry Thomas, a country blues singer and musician known as "Ragtime Texas", is believed to have died in this year. 

Henry Thomas (b. 1874, Big Sandy, Texas – d. 1930?) was an American country blues singer and musician, who had a brief recording career in the late 1920s.  He was often billed as "Ragtime Texas".  His style is an early example of what later became known as Texas blues guitar.

Thomas was born into a family of freed slaves in Big Sandy, Texas, in 1874.  He began traveling the Texas railroad lines as a hobo after leaving home in his teens. He eventually earned his way as an itinerant songster, entertaining local populaces as well as railway employees.

Thomas recorded 24 sides for Vocalion Records between 1927 and 1929, 23 of which were released. They include reels, gospel songs, minstrel songs, ragtime numbers, and blues.  Besides guitar, Thomas accompanied himself on quills, a folk instrument fabricated from cane reeds whose sound is similar to the zampona played by musicians in Peru and Bolivia. His style of playing guitar was probably derived from banjo-picking styles.

His life and career after his last recordings in 1929 have not been chronicled. However, most biographers indicate he died in 1930, when he would have been 55 or 56 years old.

Thomas's legacy has been sustained by his songs, which were revived by musicians beginning in the folk music revival of the early 1960s. Among the first of these was "Honey Won't You Allow Me One More Chance", which was reinterpreted by Bob Dylan on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963 under the title "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance".  Although Dylan reworked the melody and almost totally rewrote the lyrics, he credited Thomas as co-writer on Freewheelin'.

Thomas's song "Fishing Blues" was recorded by United States folk-rock group the Lovin' Spoonful in 1965, appearing on their hit debut album Do You Believe in Magic. The song was recorded three years later, in 1968, by the blues musician Taj Mahal for one of his first albums, De Old Folks at Home, and has since been released on Mahal's compilation albums. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band also covered the song on their album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III in 2002.

"Bull-Doze Blues", another of Thomas's Vocalion recordings, was reworked by the pianist Johnny Miller in 1927, who rewrote the words and gave it to Wingy Manone, who recorded two versions titled "Up the Country" in December 1927 for Columbia and September 1930 for Champion Records. Except in jazz circles, it remained an obscure blues number until it was picked up by the blues-rock group Canned Heat as the basis for the song "Going Up the Country".  Though rearranged, the Canned Heat song is musically the same, down to a faithful rendition of Thomas's quill solos by Jim Horn.  Fellow band member Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson rewrote the lyrics entirely and received credit on the song's original release in 1968 on Canned Heat's third album, Living the Blues. The next year, the group played at the legendary Woodstock Festival. Their live performance of "Going Up the Country" was featured in the motion picture Woodstock and appeared as the second cut on the soundtrack album.

"Don't Ease Me In" was covered by the Grateful Dead on their album Go to Heaven. Thomas's recording of "Don't Ease Me In" is included on the compilation album  The Music never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead.

Thomas's arrangement of "Cottonfield Blues" was performed by the early Delta blues musicians Garfield Akers and Mississippi Joe Callicott in 1929.

In 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful included an original song entitled "Henry Thomas" on their album Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful.

In 1993, the band Deacon Blue included a song entitled "Last Night I Dreamed of Henry Thomas" on their album Whatever You Say, Say Nothing.

*****

*Neval Thomas, a civil rights activist and the president of the Washington, D. C. branch of the NAACP from 1925 to 1930, died in Washington, D. C. (April 13).

Neval Hollen Thomas (b. January 6, 1874, Springfield, Ohio – d. April 13, 1930, Washington, D. C.) attended public school in Ohio, then pursued a bachelor's degree at Howard University. Receiving his bachelor of arts degree in 1901, he then enrolled in Howard University Law School. Despite attaining his law degree in 1904, Thomas pursued teaching as a career instead.

Thomas taught American history for 19 years at M Street High School in Washington, D.  C.  At the time, M Street High School (later named Dunbar High School) was one of the most prestigious and exceptional African American educational institutions to have ever existed in the United States. Students were offered a comprehensive academic education. Thomas was interested in the subjects of race and democracy and often tied his teachings at M Street High School to these subjects. In order to expand his education, he traveled abroad and visited churches and literary social clubs. He worked well with the school boards and accomplished several projects to get a stadium and a greenhouse built for the student and faculty body. Later, he became Dunbar's vice principal.

The summer of 1919, also known as the Red Summer, brought great attention to Thomas. There was rioting on the streets of Washington between blacks and whites, and blacks armed themselves with guns to fight back. Thomas met with city officials, such as the City's chief executive, Louis Brownlow, to discuss the events leading to the riots and to urge that something be done immediately. As the fighting raged on in Washington, D. C., Thomas helped obtain lawyers for imprisoned blacks, distributed pamphlets, and roamed the streets to help aid the rioters.  Denouncing the city commissioner and chief of police, he claimed, “If you can’t protect us, we will arm and defend ourselves.” Using his position working for the Washington Afro-American newspaper, Thomas reached out to the press. Even though Thomas pushed to end the riots, the congregation of blacks defending their rights on the streets impressed him.

Due to Thomas's leadership during the 1919 riots, as well as his ability to reason with an open ear, he earned a position on the board of directors of the NAACP branch in Washington in 1919. He channeled his activism within the NAACP toward the racial inequalities present in public schools within Washington.

Thomas published an article in 1923 titled "District of Colombia-A Paradise of Paradoxes," where he addressed the racial issues he saw present in the public schools. In his article, he focused on the inequalities of teachers salaries. During his time in the NAACP, he pushed for equal pay for black school employees as well as equal salaries for officers in white and black schools.

Thomas' lifelong commitment to the injustices of racial inequality within Washington D. C. landed him a higher position on the NAACP Washington branch as president of the branch in 1925. Thomas was known as one of the most aggressive branch presidents.  He continued to take action against racial inequalities as president. Starting in 1926, Thomas received mixed feedback from NAACP members, especially after he cancelled a speech for the women’s campaign. He wrote numerous hate-filled letters to board members, which were used as evidence for his increasingly radical ideals. Thomas protested in 1927 after several Negro examiners in the Interior Department were assigned together in a new work station and forced the Secretary of the Interior Department to rescind the segregation.

Neval Thomas died on April 13, 1930 at age 56 due to ongoing health issues. Emma Merritt replaced him as head of the NAACP as the first woman president. After his death, the Washington, D. C., NAACP adopted less radical ideas. The members were more content with the economical, social, and political disparities they faced than they used to be, and lacked Thomas' radical push for action.  Although Thomas had been known for his active engagement in Washington, D. C. and for his push for racial equality in public schools and in the workplace, his critics believed that Thomas would even jeopardize his own bread and butter for a high principle.  Indeed, by voicing his opinions and maintaining his outspoken, candid manor, Thomas often developed hostility among his adversaries.

Nevertheless, in his honor, Washington, D. C. established the Neval Thomas Elementary School on Anacostia Avenue, Washington, D. C.

*****

*John Thompson, a jounalist and businessman who played a key role in the early history of the African American newspaper, the Iowa State Bystander, died.

John Lay Thompson (b. April 3, 1869, Grand River Township, Decatur County, Iowa -  d. 1930) was born to Andy and Catherine Thompson in 1869, while the family lived in Decatur County, Iowa.  He was the first of four children (John, Eldora, Eddie), and had one older half-brother (Benjamin Sheppard). Born a slave in Kentucky, Andy Thompson was released by his master in 1862 and settled in Decatur County, Iowa. The elder Thompson put all his children through college with his earnings as a farmer on 240 acres in Decatur County.

John Thompson graduated from Iowa Business College in 1896 and the Drake University Law School in 1898.  While still a student at Drake, he took over the newly founded Iowa State Bystander from its original publisher, William Coalson, in 1896. He stayed in Des Moines for the rest of his life, and over the following years, he turned the newspaper into a successful enterprise by organizing aggressive subscription drives and threatened boycotts against businesses that refused to advertise in a black newspaper. During the First World War, Thompson dedicated entire issues of the Bystander to issues surrounding the Buffalo Soldier regiments stationed in Iowa's Camp Dodge.  After Armistice, Thompson met many returning black veterans, including James B. Morris.  Morris took over the Bystander in 1922.

In addition to his work in journalism, Thompson and his wife, Maud Watkins-Thompson, were active in Iowan society. He served as deputy county treasurer in Polk County, Iowa, as well as deputy clerk of the Iowa Historical building.  In July 1912, he was named the Grand Master of the Colored Masons of Iowa.

*****

*Cyrus Wiley, the president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth, died in Atlanta, Georgia (January 3).

Cyrus Gilbert Wiley (b. August 13, 1881, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – d. January 3, 1930, Atlanta, Georgia) served as president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth from 1921 and until 1926 succeeding Richard R. Wright.
Wiley was a 1902 graduate of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth.  He succeeded Richard R. Wright as president of the college in 1921. During his term as president the first female students were admitted as boarding students on the campus.  Additionally, the college was established as a federal agricultural extension center.
The Willcox-Wiley Physical Education Complex, built in 1954 on the university's campus, is named in honor of Cyrus G. Wiley.

*****

Performing Arts

This decade saw a revival in attempts to create a local Harlem theater.  In the early 1930's, Rose McClendon and Dick Campbell organized a Negro People's Theater at the Lafayette as a stock company.  The Harlem Players presented African American versions of Sailor Beware and Front Page.  Two other companies, Harlem Experimental Players and the Harlem Suitcase Theater, were also organized.

*****

*Richard B. Harrison starred as "De Lawd" in The Green Pastures, which opened on Broadway (February 21).

The Green Pastures by Marc Connelly opened at New York's Mansfield Theater.  The play is an adaptation of a 1928 collection of tales by Roark Bradford and it depicts heaven, the angels, and the Lord as envisioned by an African American country preacher for a Louisiana congregation.  The play would have a run of 640 performances. 

*****

*In October, Marian Anderson received critical acclaim for her concert in the Bach Saal in Berlin and then embarked on an extensive tour of Europe. 

Marian Anderson (c.1896-1993) was one of the twentieth century's most celebrated singers, was the first African American to sing a principal role with the Metropolitan Opera.  She made her debut as Ulrica in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera on January 7, and remained with the Met for seven performances.  Anderson made national headlines in 1939 when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her appearance in their Constitution Hall.  Anderson continued to tour until her farewell trip in the 1964-65 season.

*****


*Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1930 premiered at New York's Royal Theater with Ethel Waters and Cecil Mack's Choir (October 22).  Songs in the musical include "Memories of You" by Eubie Blake with lyrics by Andy Razaf.  The musical would have 57 performances.

*****

*Blanche Calloway became the first African American woman to lead an all-male band.

Blanche Calloway (1902-1973) was one of the most successful bandleaders of the 1930s.  For a while, she and her brother, Cab Calloway, had their own act.  

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she studied at Morgan State College, and later moved to Miami, Florida, where she became the first woman disk jockey on American radio.  Calloway toured from 1931 to 1944 with "The 12 Clouds of Joy" as a singer, dancer, and conductor.

*****

Politics

*In Detroit, 19.5% of the African Americans voted Democratic.  The percentage increased to 36.7% in 1932, 63.5% in 1936, and reached 69.3% in 1940.

*****

Social Organizations

*The National Pan-Hellenic Council was formed on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D. C. (May 10).

Sports

*At age 19, Josh Gibson joined the Pittsburgh Homestead Grays and began a successful 15-year career as a catcher for various professional black baseball teams.  He would achieve a .423 lifetime batting average and be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

*The St. Louis Stars beat the Detroit Stars 4 games to 3 games to win the Negro National League championship.

*****

Statistics

*****

Visual Arts

*Painter William H. Johnson won the Harmon gold medal for his expressionistic landscapes.