Thomas L. Cummings, Sr.

Thomas L. Cummings, Sr. (May 1, 1891 – March 29, 1968) was an American politician.[1] He served as the Mayor of Nashville, Tennessee from 1938 to 1951.[2][3][4]

Biography

Born on a farm near McMinnville, Tennessee, he was trained as a lawyer.[4][5]

He won the election in 1938, and got reelected in 1939, 1943 and 1947.[4]

In 1939, he appointed black banker James Carroll Napier to the Nashville Housing Authority.[6][7] In 1940, he sent a police escort to Napier's funeral.[8] In May 1948, he announced the hiring of seven black policemen to join the Nashville police force.[2] He hastened to add they would only work in black neighborhoods, arguing they would be more qualified to keep the order in black neighborhoods.[2] Further, they shared only one patrol car and weren't allowed to arrest white Nashvillians.[2] Cummings died on March 29, 1968 in Nashville.

His son, Thomas L. Cummings, Jr., was a businessman and founder of Cummings Signs, a manufacturer of corporate brand signs for the Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, KFC, Captain D's, the Chevron Corporation, Conoco, Holiday Inn and Bank of America.[3][9]

References

  1. Brooklyn Museum
  2. 1 2 3 4 E. Thomas Wood, Nashville now and then: New voices in the Old South, Nashville Post, May 11, 2007
  3. 1 2 E. Thomas Wood, Founder of Cummings sign firm passes away, Nashville Post, January 26, 2009
  4. 1 2 3 Robert Guy Spinney, World War II in Nashville: Transformation of the Home Front, Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1998, p. 75
  5. http://www.nashvillebar.org/Committee/Historical/Memorial/Resolution/CUMMINGS,ThomasL.pdf
  6. 'J. C. Napier Named on Housing Authority', The Crisis, January 1939, p. 5
  7. John N. Ingham, Lynne B. Feldman, African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, pp. 489-490
  8. Linda T. Wynn, Encyclopedia of African American Business, Volume 1, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, p. 564
  9. E. D. Thompson, Nashville Nostalgia, Westview Publishing, 2003, p. 131
Political offices
Preceded by
Hilary Ewing Howse
Mayor of Nashville, Tennessee
1938-1951
Succeeded by
Ben West
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