Harry Sythe Cummings photograph collection

Harry Sythe Cummings (1866-1917) was a lawyer, first black Baltimore City Councilman, and fraternal leader. He was second eldest son of the eight children of Henry Cummings and Eliza Jane Davage Cummings. His father, Henry, was a chef and his mother, Eliza, conducted a lodging and boarding business in the family homes, 424 West Biddle Street and 1234 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore. One of Harry’s brothers, Aaron Cummings, became the first black United States Postal Service Supervisor in Baltimore. Ida Cummings, one of Harry’s sisters, was one of the first black kindergarten teachers in Baltimore. Cummings married Blanche Teresa Conklin and had two children, Louise Virginia Cummings Dorcas and Harry Sythe Cummings, Jr.

After early education in public schools and recognizing there were no opportunities for African Americans to attend high school in Baltimore, Cummings enrolled in Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. At the age of 16, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886.

He read law in the office of Joseph S. Davis, Esq., common practice for African Americans wishing to practice law in Baltimore. In 1887, he entered University of Maryland School of Law as one of the first two African Americans to finish the program. It took a Maryland Court of Appeals deicision in 1936 (Pearson v. Murray) to reopen the law school to African American students after Cummings graduated.

He was admitted to the practice of law on May 30, 1889 and continued actively in that profession. At the age of 26 in 1890, he was the first African American to serve in the City Council of Baltimore. He was reelected in 1891, 1896, and again in 1907, serving until his death in 1917.

February 1, 1892, he introduced the ordinance which was passed and signed by Mayor Ferdinand Latrobe on February 16, 1892, founding the first Manual Training School for Colored Youth in the City of Baltimore. Ten thousand dollars was appropriated to the school and it was named Colored Polytechnic Institute. He was a constant worker for more African American teachers and more schools open to African American students.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois in June 1904, he made one of the addresses seconding the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt for the Presidency of the United States.

He was an active member in many fraternal orders and from 1910 to 1912 was Grand Attorney for the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows.