1930 - The United States: Notable Deaths: N-Z

*****
*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.