If you are a gospel music fan who came of age in the 1970’s, then there is a very good chance that you knew Earl Preston, Jr., the East Tech High School alumnus, military veteran, gifted singer, founder and long-time choral director of the Prestonians, former Cleveland State University student, television celebrity, and pastor of the Morning Star Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. His love for Black sacred music led to his involvement in the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses (the “Dorsey Convention”) — and many other activities, including (in 2003) my Praying Grounds Oral History Project.
Today, I learned that The Rev. Dr. Earl Preston, Jr. made his transition on Sunday, May 1, 2016, and I miss him already. He lived a full and incredibly productive life, and, despite his busy schedule, he took the time to be my mentor and my friend.
Well done. Rest well, “Preacher.”
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.
If you are a gospel music fan who came of age in the 1970’s, then there is a very good chance that you knew Earl Preston, Jr., the East Tech High School alumnus, military veteran, gifted singer, founder and long-time choral director of the Prestonians, former Cleveland State University student, television celebrity, and pastor of the Morning Star Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. His love for Black sacred music led to his involvement in the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses (the “Dorsey Convention”) — and many other activities, including (in 2003) my Praying Grounds Oral History Project.
The RASHAD Center, Inc. 