A few days ago, a sister scholar wrote to say that someone told her I might be retiring soon. While I appreciated the fact that she was concerned about my well-being, I assured her that, after spending 23 years in the same academic department, I realized that it was time for me to declare my independence–although I had not reached retirement age–and move on to life’s next great adventure. My last day on that job was May 13, 2015.
“Independent Scholar and Consultant.” That really has a nice ring to it! Nearly four weeks after the July 4th holiday, I am still celebrating the freedom to create, experiment, and innovate on a daily basis. There are struggles, of course, but they are outweighed by the feelings of exhilaration that come at the completion of every successful project, and I know that I am not alone in feeling this way.
Earlier this week, I drove more than two hours from Cleveland, Ohio to Chautauqua, New
Ava DuVernay
York, just to hear another firsthand account of the joys and challenges associated with being independent–this time from Ava DuVernay, the award-winning independent filmmaker and director of the critically-acclaimed “Selma.” Her amphitheater presentation on the Chautauqua Institution‘s weekly theme, “Art & Politics,” was awe-inspiring, and I even had the opportunity to snap a quick photo as she left the theater’s “back porch.”
If you want to be similarly inspired, and find out more about DuVernay’s work, please visit http://www.avaduvernay.com/.
Happy Independence Day, Every Day, to All Entrepreneurs!
About Dr. Regennia N. Williams, Founder, President, and Executive Director
Dr. Regennia N. Williams is the Founder and Executive Director of The RASHAD Center, Inc., a Maryland-based non-profit educational corporation.
Williams holds a PhD in Social History and Policy from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. A native Clevelander and a four-time alumna of Cleveland State University, information on RASHAD's “Praying Grounds, African American Faith Communities: A Documentary and Oral History” project is now available online at www.ClevelandMemory.org/pray/, a site that is maintained by CSU's Library Special Collections, home of the Praying Grounds manuscript collections. Praying Grounds was the primary inspiration for the launching of the Initiative for the Study of Religion and Spirituality in the History of Africa and the Diaspora (RASHAD) at CSU, and links to RASHAD's scholarly journal and newsletter are also available on the Praying Grounds site. On April 28, 2020, the RASHAD Center, Inc. became a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
In 2010, Dr. Williams was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University, where she taught history and directed a RASHAD-related oral history project that focused on the role of religion in recent Nigerian social history. Other research-related travels have taken her to Canada, China, France, South Africa, and Austria.
In 2013, she conceived and produced “Come Sunday @ 70: The Place of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Jazz in World History and Culture, c. 1943-2013,” a project that included scholarly presentations and performing arts activities. From September 1993 until May 2015, she was a faculty member in the Department of History at Cleveland State University. She served as a Fulbright Specialist at South Africa's University of the Free State in the summer of 2019, and completed a short-term faculty residency at Howard University in the fall of 2019. She is based in Cleveland, Ohio.
As a public scholar, her current research projects focus on African American history and culture, especially as it relates to music, religion, and spirituality. She is a member of the Oral History Association, the Western Reserve Historical Society, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The RASHAD Center, Inc. 