By Regennia N. Williams, PhD
The Official Juneteenth Flag
The 2020 Juneteenth celebrations have, thus far, been bittersweet. With ongoing protests related to police brutality and anti-Black racism, Americans have nevertheless used this annual celebration of Black freedom to consider lessons from our shared past. These lessons relate to the legacy of the Civil War, the promise of full citizenship rights that came with the end of that war in 1865, the progress that our nation has made toward realizing the dream of true freedom for all people, the challenges that activists say remain before us, and the rich cultural heritage that has also served to inspire and uplift those who remain committed to the struggle against injustice.
This year, the RASHAD Center, Inc. used the occasion of Juneteenth to announce the official launch of an educational initiative that would focus on the African American past, present, and future. C-L-E / Arts & Culture TV is the brainchild of Board member, educator, and musician Theresa Ann Bumpers, and the program will showcase the gifts and talents of an inter-generational group of artists. RASHAD shared the video announcement about the project in its new Facebook group. To view and hear the project announcement, CLICK HERE. To find out more about our vision for the initiative, consider joining our Facebook group.
Thank you!
Still from YouTube Juneteenth 2020 Project Launch Announcement
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. 