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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