A 2009 DVD from the archives.
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting the Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives, an incredible collection of learning resources at the University of the District of Columbia.
My introduction to the collection included informal conversations with a staff member and a UDC music student, a brief tour of the reading / listening room, a history of the archives, and information about the UDC Jazz Studies Program, student performing arts ensembles, special events, publications and recordings by UDC and other entities (including the items pictured here), and the place of jazz in world history and culture.
The Spring 2014 “Jazz in Washington” issue of Washington History, a publication of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
I will definitely include visits to the Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives on the list of required public history activities for students enrolled in my fall 2016 classes. I am convinced that materials in this collection will enhance teaching, learning, and research–which is in direct keeping with the archives’ mission. I invite you to join me on this journey through the history of the “capital city” and the United States of America, which can be rewarding for members of both the academic and non-academic communities alike.
For more information, please visit the website for the Felix E. Grant Jazz Archives.
A Duke Ellington commemorative quarter, 2003.
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. 