* Warning: This is an unofficial, introductory copy of the bill.
The official copy considered by the City Council is the first reader copy.
Introductory*
City of Baltimore
Council Bill
Introduced by: Councilmember Costello, President Young
A Bill Entitled
An Ordinance concerning
title
City Property - Naming the Building, Informally Known as the MECU Building, to be the Councilman Harry S. Cummings Building
For the purpose of naming the building located at 401 East Fayette Street, informally known as the MECU Building, the Councilman Harry S. Cummings Building.
body
By authority of
Article 5 - Finance, Property, and Procurement
Section 20-2
Baltimore City Code
(Edition 2000)
Recitals
Harry Sythe Cummings, Baltimore’s first African-American Councilman, was born in Baltimore’s Eleventh Ward, in 1866, and educated in Baltimore’s public schools. In 1886, he graduated from Lincoln University, an institution of higher learning that was then known as the “Black Princeton” because of its Princeton-educated founder, its early faculty, and its rigorous classical curriculum. He then graduated from the University of Maryland Law School, in 1889, one of the first two African-Americans to do so.
His political career commenced in 1890, when he was elected to City Council from the Ward in which he was born. At that time, each Councilman selected a candidate for a full scholarship to the Maryland Institute. Harry Cummings selected Harry S. Pratt, an African-American. Maryland Institute refused to honor Pratt’s scholarship, and Cummings then prevailed in the courts on behalf of this young man.
He was also known as the Father of Colored Polytechnic, for his efforts in promoting the establishment of the high school.
Although reelected...
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