Walter Napier, Senior Class Photo, Glenville High School. (Courtesy of Walter Napier.)
The RASHAD Center Inc. salutes Mr. Walter Napier, an alumnus of Cleveland’s Glenville High School, an Air Force veteran, and a servant-leader at St. Adalbert – Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. On Sunday, March 14, 2021, board member Theresa Ann Bumpers served as an interviewer-oral historian, capturing the story of Napier’s civilian life and military service for C-L-E/Arts and Culture TV, RASHAD’s Internet-based educational program series. In direct keeping with our arts and culture focus for 2021, after the interview, Bumpers also served as the pianist-vocalist for the church service!
Thanks to a grant from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, RASHAD will continue to produce and share virtual programs that highlight the accomplishments of local fine and performing artists and other community leaders in Cleveland, including veterans. The program on Walter Napier will be available for viewing by June 19, 2021 –just in time for the annual Juneteenth celebration of Black American freedom.
On Sunday, March 14, 2021, Theresa Ann Bumpers interviewed Air Force Veteran Walter Napier at St. Adalbert – Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church.Glenville High School, Napier’s Alma Mater. (Photo courtesy of Walter Napier.)Inspection Time for Walter Napier. (Photo Courtesy of Walter Napier.)
Walter Napier with Air Force Colleague. (Photo Courtesy of Walter Napier.)
For more information on this project, please write to rashadcenterinc1@gmail.com, follow C-L-E / Arts and Culture TV on Facebook, and like the RASHAD Center’s Facebook page.
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. 