Mrs. June Sallée Antoine, co-founder of the Adrienne Kennedy Society and Creative Writing Workshop Projects, is shown here in a still from her 2003 interview for “Praying Grounds: African American Faith Communities, A Documentary and Oral History Project.” The interview was conducted in the Rhodes Tower television studio at Cleveland State University.
By Regennia N. Williams, PhD
When I consider the significant role that the arts and humanities have played in my life, I am often reminded of the work of Mrs. June Sallée Antoine (1929-2016). A native of Sandusky, Ohio, Mrs Antoine was my sister in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a long-time member of Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, an educator, an arts administrator, and a philanthropist. In addition to serving as the co-founder of the Adrienne Kennedy Society and Creative Writing Workshop Projects, she was the co-director of the Langston Hughes Young Writers Project when we worked together during the award-winning Langston Hughes Centennial Celebration. She was also a key supporter of the Cleveland Chautauqua Project.
In 2022, I look forward to celebrating her legacy, the ongoing work of Adrienne Kennedy, and the contributions of other great artists, scholars, and patrons of the arts and humanities. For more information on the Langston Hughes Centennial Project, the Cleveland Chautauqua Project, the Praying Grounds Oral History Project, and related arts and humanities activities, please visit www.ClevelandMemory.org/prayor stop by Special Collections in Cleveland State University’s Michael Schwartz Library. An online finding aid for the Praying Grounds Collection is also available HERE.
In 2010, Mrs. Antoine (left) and I (far right) drove to the Chautauqua Institution in New York to meet with the Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell (seated), who was then serving as the Director of Religion at the Institution. Rev. Campbell’s daughter, Jane Campbell, was the first woman to be elected mayor of Cleveland. Jane Campbell (second from right) and her daughter joined us in posing for this group photo
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. 