"Irvine Garland Penn" (October 71867-July 22 1930)

Educator journalist, and religious activist,was born in New Glasgow in Amherst,County,Virginia, to Isham (or Isom)Irvine Penn, a farmer, blacksmith, grocer, and mechanic-brakeman, and Maria (or Mariah)Levine, a seamtress.His parents instilled in their son the value of education ehen they moved to Lynchburg,Virginia,so that the five-year-old could attend a good school. He attended Jackson Street Methodist Episcopal Church School,the first high school for African-Americans in Lynchburg,for one year before financial difficulities forced his depature in 1883.As a young teen Irvine taught in Bedford County to earn the money necessary for his return to the Jackson Street School.He graduated in 1886, along with four others,in the school's first graduating class.From 1886-1887 he served as superintendent of a public school in Lynchburg where he later became principal.In 1890 he received an MA from the Rust College, aschool sponsored by the Methodist Episcopal Church in Holly Springs,Mississippi.Irvine also received an honorary doctorate in 1908 from Wiley College in Marshall,Texas.His interest in journalism helped him advocate African-American education and racial uplift. While still in high school he joined the editorial staff of the first African-American newspaper in Lynchburg,the Lynchburg Laborer.In 1886,after graduating,he became editor and co-owner of the paper with P.H. Johnson.The paper was renamed the Laboring Man in 1887,financial difficulties forced its termination. Irvine also wrote for several other newspapers, including the Knoxville Negro World,the New York Age, the Richmond Planet, and the Virginia Lancet, receiving praise from both the African-American and white presses.On December 1889 Irvine married Anna Belle Rhodes, a graduate of Shaw University who taught at Payne School, and they had seven children. Anna published some essays and poetry and assisted her husband in his most renowned work, The Afro-American Press and its Editors (1891), a comprehensive history of the African-American press from 1827-1891.It begins with Freedom's Journal and includes sketches of numerous editors as well as a section on nineteen African-American women in journalism.Religion played a central role in his life and work.He was elected lay delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church ten consecutive time between 1892 and 1928. Even though he apparently was not ordained,he acquired the title reverend.In 1889 Irvine lectured in Charlottesville,Virginia,at the Annual Conference of the Colored ME Church, calling for the creation of a theological and normal school in Virginia.The Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute was established soon afterward in 1893.The link between education and religion in his work is further evident in his "Lynchburg Plan, published in Jesse Lyman Hurlbut's Seven Graded Sunday Schools (1893). In this essay Irvine responded to what he viewed as the degenerate condition of the Sunday School system,proposing systematic progressively rigorous religious instruction.In his role as assistant general secretary for the Epworth League,position he held from 1897 to 1912,Irvine gave numerous lectures supporting the ME Church's national effort to further African-American education.He also asserted the importance of the church as a positive reinforcement,as illustrated by his invitation of the American Association of Education of Colored Youth.His business interests also reflect his support for African American advancement.He was a member of the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers,which created the True Reformers Bank,identified by some as the "first African-American and operated bank chartered in the United States"Irvine was also a member of the board of directors of the Lynchburg Loan and Trust Company, which advanced money on real estate and assisted poor families with obtaining homes.In 1895 Irvine worked with twelve African American doctors to create National Medical Association,a professional organization for African American doctors,dentists, and pharmacists.Irvine educational and racial uplift commitments assumed an even broader context through his work The College of Life,or Practical Self-Educator:A Manual of Self-Improvement for the Colored Race (1895),which he wrote with Henry Davenport Northrup and Joseph R.Gay.This comprehensive self-help manual was an invaluable resource,containing writings on a range of topics related to etiquette,health,business, literature, and domestic life,even including an essay on "Suitable Rules for Love-Making."Copies of this book were circulated at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895,where Irvine was the National Commissioner of Negro Exhibits,for which he won the gold medal for excellence.African American participation in this event occurred shortly after the Chicago 1893 World's Columbia Exposition.It marked an attempt to celebrate the experiences and contributions of African Americans,something that many claimed did not occur at the Chicago exposition.Irvine,along with Ida B.Wells and Frederick Douglass,affirmed this view in their pamphlet The Reasons Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Colombian Exposition (1893).Irvine is also credited with inviting Booker T.Washington to speak at the Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895.This speech later became known as Washington's Atlanta Compromise speech, one of the exposition's most memorable events.After the exposition's Irvine moved permanently to Atlanta from Lynchburg with his family.Living near Gammon Theological Seminary and Clark University enable him to pursue his interests in racial uplift through religious and academic activities,as demonstrated through his becoming a trustee at both institutions.His further advanced these interests though the publication of The United Negro:His Problems and His Progress (1902),which he co edited with J.W.E. Bowen,a professor at Gammon Theological Seminary.This text compiles the proceedings of the Negro Young People's Christian Educational Congress,which Irvine organized as corresponding secretary of the congress.The volume contains numerous writings about African American life, including an essay by his wife Anna.In 1912 he and his family moved to Cincinnati,Ohio,after he became co-corresponding secretary of the Freedman's Aid Society (later known as the ME Board of Education for Negroes) and the Southern Educational Society.He continued to enjoy national recognition as he traveled throughout the country in his role as a ME educational leader.Irvine remained committed to African American education,as a demonstrated by his assistance to Wiley College during its recovery from a fire in 1918,as well as through his position as secretary of the endowments and field promotion department of the ME board of education.During this period he was also instrumental in the merging of Cookman Institute,and ME Church school for girls.Mary McLeod Bethune was principal of the new institute,called Daytona-Cookman Normal and Industrial School of the new institute,called Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute,which later became  Bethune-Cookman College.Anna died almost a month before Irvine did in Cincinnati.Hospitalization for heart disease prevented him attending his wife's funeral.He died of hear diease after suffering from this illness for sometime.One of his daughters also attributed his death to Irvine's "rigorous lifestyle"as well as the racist treatment he experienced as he traveled throughout the country on the train.