Regennia N. Williams (second from right) with (left to right) Joel Oke, Biodun Adediron and Yisa Yusef, faculty members and administrators at Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University.
The July 2016 issue of The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs (JTB) is now available online at http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/jtb/. Inspired by my work as a Fulbright Scholar in Ile-Ife Nigeria, this issue celebrates the legacy of the Rev. Dr. John S. Mbiti, a Kenyan-born leader in the worldwide Anglican Communion and the author of African Religions and Philosophy, among other publications. Articles by contributing scholars focus on Mbiti’s influence on the study of Pan-African literature, African Traditional Religions, African and African-influenced music, women and religion, and other topics. Special thanks to Dr. Taiwo Soneye, Faculty of Arts at Obafemi Awolowo University, for serving as co-editor.
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Regennia N. Williams, Editor
The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs
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. 