Never underestimate the difference that a few good men and women can make in a neighborhood and an organization. On Saturday, September 19, 2015, current and former residents of Fairfax joined other history lovers in discussing the life stories, good works, and archival collections related to several people and organizations with ties to this historic Cleveland neighborhood, including Dr. Shirley Smith Seaton and pianist Evelyn Freeman Roberts, a 1941 alumna of the Cleveland Institute of Music who now resides in California.
These images document some of the memorable moments from the fourth and final event in the “Afternoons in the Archives” series at the Cleveland History Center of the Western Reserve Historical Society. (Jeff Ivey, photographer)
“Famous in the Neighborhood and Beyond” was the fourth and final event in the “Afternoons in the Archives” series that I planned and produced in partnership with the African American Archives Auxiliary (“Quad A”) of the Western Reserve Historical Society. In addition to highlighting some fascinating aspects of Cleveland’s past and Quad A’s 44-year history, the programs encouraged participants to consider how they might strengthen the Auxiliary, and support the library’s African American archival collections in the future.
The series also allowed participants to learn more about library archival collections at Cleveland State University, the University of California (Los Angeles), and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Evelyn Freeman Roberts, a 1941 graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and a former Fairfax resident, was honored as an outstanding CIM alum in 2008. (Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Institute of Music.)
If the inter-generational group (numbering more than 100 for the entire series) remains engaged, they will be able to make a world of difference in the life of the Auxiliary, and that will be a very good thing for Quad A, the Cleveland History Center in University Circle, and, in this digital age of online archives, history lovers the world over!
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. 