Person

Ida R. Cummings

African American woman, named Ida Cummings; Her left hand on her chin & her right hand on her hip
Ida R. Cummings, from a 1912 issue of The Crisis

Quick Facts
Significance:
Ida R. Cummings and the Cummings family played a huge role for civil rights in the Baltimore and Towson area. Ida and her family were on the front lines from the suffrage movement to supporting amendments to better the rights of Black Americans.
Place of Birth:
Baltimore MD
Date of Birth:
March 17, 1868
Place of Death:
Druid Hill Avenue Baltimore MD
Date of Death:
November 11, 1958
Place of Burial:
Baltimore MD
Cemetery Name:
Mount Auburn Cemetery

Ida R. Cummings and the Cummings family played a huge role for civil rights in the Baltimore and Towson area. Ida and her family were on the front lines from the suffrage movement to supporting amendments to better the rights of Black Americans. 

Ida Rebecca Cummings was born on March 17, 1868, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was Henry Cummins/Cummings (c. 1826-1906) who had been born enslaved to Charles Carnan Ridgely of Hampton at the White Marsh farm. When Ridgely died in 1829,under the terms of his will, Henry was to be freed when he reached the age of 28 in the mid-1850s. When finally freed, he then moved from White Marsh into Baltimore City, where he was employed at a large hotel in the fashionable 11th Ward. City Directory listings show that he was a cook and waiter, and he eventually became a successful chef and caterer. In 1863, Henry married Eliza Jane Davage (1843-1914). Eliza's parents (Ida's grandparents) had been freed from enslavement at Perry Hall plantation, not far from White Marsh. Ida had six brothers and two sisters. 

By the 1870s Ida’s father, Henry Cummings, (as his name came to be spelled) demonstrated an interest in politics and public life. In 1879, he was elected to be a delegate to the Maryland's Republican Party nominating convention from the 12th election district of Baltimore City. In addition to raising and seeing to the education of her siblings, Eliza, Ida's mother, was a seamstress and ran a boarding house at the family's residences so that their children could go on to higher education. All but one of Ida’s siblings went to college, a huge achievement for even today, much less a Black family in the late 19th century! 

Family, church, and community all were very important to the Cummings family. Eliza Cummings was active in both her church and local organizations which enhanced the welfare and education of Baltimore's Black citizens. Eliza was a suffrage leader. She was also a founder of both the Aged Men and Women’s Home and the Empty Stockings Club, a Christmas gifts delivery event for the community’s underprivileged people. She gave speeches across the eastern half of the country in support of amendments to enhance and protect the rights of Black Americans. Ida advocated for many of the same causes as her mother, with an interest in assisting children and families. She worked to support black community interests on the local, state, and national levels. 

 

Having big shoes to fill, Ida passed the teachers’ examination in the early 1890s. As early as 1895, Ida began her career as an educator in the public schools of Baltimore, teaching primary school at Sparrows Point. In 1901, she was appointed as the first African American kindergarten teacher in the Maryland public school system and eventually became “directress” of public-school no. 112, the largest public school in Baltimore at the time for African Americans. Ida worked at school no. 112 for many years, but she later transferred to school no. 122. In the 1900 US census for Baltimore City, she is listed at the family home on Druid Hill Avenue with the occupation of “Kindergardeness”. She retired from teaching in 1937. Ida had an important career as an educator, club woman, and civic activist. She was a graduate of Morgan College and attended the Columbia University Summer School for teachers in the 1920s. 

From 1910-1916, she was Correspondence Secretary for the National Association of Colored Women’s Club (NACW). Through the NACW Ida supported issues such as women’s suffrage, temperance, and anti-lynching and moved in circles with prominent black women leaders such as Mary Church Terrell, Hallie Quinn Brown, Margaret Murray Washington, and Mary McLeod Bethune. A special women’s suffrage issue of The Crisis, the national publication of the NAACP, edited by W.E.B. Du Bois, identified Ida as one of several prominent “suffrage workers” within the NACW. Ida delivered addresses and reports at NACW conferences and was the chairman of the local arrangements committee for the annual conference in Baltimore in 1916. She would even travel out of state for meetings and writing over 700 letters. 

Ida was chosen by Maryland Governor Emerson Harrington as chairman of the Colored Woman’s Section of the Council of National Defense, during WWI. In support of the war effort, she gave speeches at meetings with the governor, state and community leaders. She served as President of the Woman’s Campaign Bureau of the Colored Republican Voters’ League in the 1930s, and in 1940 was a presidential elector to the Republican National Convention. Ida was a member of the executive board of the Francis Ellen Watkins Harper Grand Temple, Daughter of Elks, served as grand assistant recording secretary, and was elected daughter ruler in 1926. She also was a member in the Order of the Eastern Star. In the late 1930s, she became the first woman to serve on the board of what is now Morgan State University. 

 

Ida R. Cummings died on November 11, 1958, aged 90 years, at her home on Druid Hill Avenue, which had been purchased by her parents circa 1900, and she is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Baltimore. For much of her life, Ida had lived in the family row house on Druid Hill Avenue, a thriving center of community life in black Baltimore at the turn of the twentieth century. 

The Cummings house later became a focal point for Baltimore’s civil rights activism and was known as the “Freedom House” when converted into a local office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1977 the house passed to ownership of the Bethel A.M.E. church but was eventually demolished in 2015. 

Ida was a huge driving force in civil rights, education, and philanthropy for Black Americans in Baltimore and beyond. Descendants of one of her brothers still live in the area and nearby states. Learn about one of her brother's, Harry Sythe Cummings, and everything he did!

 

  • A Closer Look at the Lewis Collection: Educator & Clubwoman, Ida R. Cummings 

  • Baltimore Afro-American Nov 15, 1958 

  • Biographical Sketch of Ida R. Cummings 

  • written by Elizabeth A. Novara, fl. 2016 (Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street, 2019), 5 page(s) 

Hampton National Historic Site

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Last updated: April 5, 2024