Edgar V. Cunningham, Sr. (December 11, 1910 – February 27, 1980) was an early youth member of the
Boy Scouts of America who, for a number of years, was believed to be the first
African American Eagle Scout. Cunningham married Susie Ann Rockett on September 14, 1931, in
Galena, Illinois. They had five children, eighteen grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren.
Background
Cunningham was born in
New Orleans, Louisiana and was a member of Troop 12 in
Waterloo, Iowa in what was then
Wapsipinicon Area Council.
Troop 12 was a "colored troop" formed in 1925 during the period when Scout units were segregated and, with Troop 9, was one of the two colored troops in Waterloo formed by James Lincoln Page. Cunningham was the first Scout in either of the Waterloo colored troops to earn Eagle Scout on June 8, 1926.
Cunningham received a hand-written letter from
President Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
referring to him as the first black Eagle Scout, and his Scoutmaster, James Lincoln Page, received a presidential citation for guiding Cunningham through that process.
After Cunningham died in 1980, the
Winnebago Council (the successor to the Wapsipinicon Area Council) made inquiries to the National Council of the BSA to determine if he was indeed the first black Eagle Scout. Since Cunningham had earned Eagle Scout fourteen years after the first Eagle Scout was awarded and National did not track ethnicity, at that time there was no way to validate the claim.
Recent scholarship has shown that
Hamilton Bradley
Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Scouts BSA program division of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Since it was first awarded to Arthur Rose Eldred on August 21, 1912, Eagle Scout has been earned by more than two million youth. T ...
of
Rome, New York became an Eagle Scout before 1920, making Bradley the earliest known black Eagle Scout.
See also
*
Scouting in Iowa
Scouting in Iowa has a long history, from the 1910s to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs that suit the environment in which they live.
Early history (1910-1960)
The earliest verifiable evidence of Boy Scouts of America inv ...
*
List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Edgar
1910 births
1980 deaths
African-American children
Boy Scouts of America
People from Iowa
People from New Orleans