Hi,

Black past has it James A. Bland, 1880.


Sources given for the page are:
- David Ewen, Great Men of American Popular Song (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972);
- Rayford Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982);
- Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).
It might be a bit of work to trace that year in them, though.

Bye
                                                                Mysha