Some name Theresa Religion Cummings “a pressure” in the easiest way.
“Aunt Theresa all the time labored to serve others,” says her niece, Rev. Vanessa R. Cummings of Oxford, Ohio. “She all the time stood up and spoke up. She might work till two or three within the morning, then be up at six to maintain working.”
Cummings could not have slept a lot to perform what she did. Acknowledged by the Springfield and Central Illinois African American Historical past Museum as a “Civil Rights Legend,” she was additionally acclaimed by WUIS-FM (now NPR Illinois) as one of many ladies who “modified Springfield.” She was proud that her household had been in Springfield because the 1830s and labored to assist the group in some ways.
With a bachelor’s diploma from the College of Winston-Salem State Academics School and, later, a grasp’s diploma from Southern Illinois College, Cummings utilized for a educating job in Springfield within the Sixties, as she defined in an oral historical past carried out for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
“I used to be interviewed by the superintendent, and as a substitute of him taking a look at my {qualifications}, he wished to know if I used to be going to have some youngsters quickly, or if I used to be going to proceed to show. I knew that was not a query that he legally ought to ask, and I informed him it was none of his enterprise.” She wasn’t employed.
As a substitute, Cummings taught in St. Louis and commenced learning legislation at Washington College. She returned residence in 1967 when requested to arrange Springfield and Sangamon County Neighborhood Motion Company’s Neighborhood Middle, a program to assist neighborhoods round Lincoln, Iles and Palmer faculties. The Middle labored on quite a lot of tasks, together with voter registration, faculty breakfast and housing, partly due to Cumming’s personal expertise.
When she returned to Springfield to show within the Sixties, Cummings looked for a spot to dwell. “I went to see about completely different flats (that) can be marketed,” she recalled in her oral historical past, “and once I bought there, all the sudden they have been stuffed. Among the residence buildings weren’t even accomplished… I filed a variety of fits with the Human Rights Fee right here.” They went nowhere.
Nonetheless, she fought. Cummings chaired the State Advisory Committee for the U.S. Fee on Civil Rights, led the Shopper Credit score Counseling Service, labored to desegregate town’s public faculties and served on the Illinois Civil Rights Fee, the Nationwide Council of Negro Ladies, the Nationwide Affiliation of Enterprise and Skilled Ladies, the Illinois Surgical Remedy Middle advisory board, and the Illinois College for the Visually Impaired advisory council, amongst different efforts.
However she would not serve on simply any group’s board. “I did choose and select,” Cummings mentioned in her oral historical past. “I’d ask them, ‘Did you need me on there for what I can contribute, or did you need me on there so you might depend me being Black and a feminine?’ As a result of at the moment, there weren’t that {many professional} Black ladies in Springfield.”
After working for the Neighborhood Motion Company, Cummings grew to become the assistant director of the Illinois Deserted Mines Reclamation Council, then the chief equal employment officer for the state’s Division of Pure Assets beneath Gov. Jim Edgar.
Whereas working, she started a bakery enterprise on the facet, Theresa’s Kitchen, which specialised in preservative-free items. “I solely use recent greens and fruit,” she mentioned in her oral historical past.
Religion and household have been additionally necessary to Cummings. She was one among seven youngsters and had “about 25 nieces, nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews,” mentioned her niece, Rev. Cummings. Collectively, Theresa and one among her sisters raised a great-niece and great-nephew.
Theresa’s residence was the hub for household, who gathered there typically or visited.
“Everytime you went to stick with her, it wasn’t like she bought sitters for you. You went to conferences together with her,” mentioned Cummings. “I feel that is what additionally impressed so lots of our household. We discovered the way to join with individuals and be part of organizations which might be making a distinction… it is the Cummings gene, we’re lively in our group.”
Cummings was a longtime member of Springfield’s St. Paul AME Church, which held her homegoing service. “She beloved her church,” mentioned her niece. She served on its trustee board, the Promotional Instructional Program, as an usher, and because the Underground Railroad chair. “Aunt Theresa labored till her final days,” she mentioned.
Tara McClellan McAndrew met Theresa once they each have been members of the identical group teams and remembers her as type and filled with historical past and spunk. Theresa was clever and upfront – she as soon as suggested Tara, “I cannot go to a gathering any extra until there may be an agenda!”
