Irvine Garland Penn (October 7, 1867 – July 22, 1930) was an American educator, journalist, and lay leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[1] In 1886, he was a correspondent for the Richmond Planet, the Knoxville Negro World, and the New York Age,[2] and frequently wrote about African Americans.

[3] In 1897, he moved to Atlanta to become Assistant General Secretary of the Epworth League for the Colored Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[1] Penn was also the creator of the National Negro Young People's Christian and Educational Congress,[6] and he taught at Rust College.

[2] In 1912, he moved to Cincinnati and became the co-corresponding secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Penn and Robert E. Jones were the leading African American members of the Joint Commission on Unification of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[10] There is some speculation that his death was related to injuries sustained while being thrown off a segregated train car in South Carolina.