A “Wings Over Jordan Choir” Full-Circle Moment

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Dr. Regennia N. Williams, Founder, President, and Executive Director
The Wings Over Jordan Choir in a publicity photo ca. 1940. Worth Kramer, conductor.

by Regennia N. Williams, PhD

On Saturday, May 17, 2025, I experienced a deeply moving full-circle moment, one that I will hold close to my heart forever. That day, surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues, I participated in the Wings Over Jordan Alumni & Friends’ scholarship luncheon. It was a profound honor to be one of the individuals recognized for dedication to preserving and promoting the powerful concert spirituals that the Wings Over Jordan Choir from Cleveland, Ohio helped make famous in the 1930s and 1940s. (See plaque below.)

Maestro Glen Brackens (left) is shown above with members of the leadership team for the 2025 Wings Over Jordan Alumni & Friends Scholarship Luncheon. (Photo by Regennia N. Williams)

The Rev. Glenn T. Settle, Pastor of Cleveland’s Gethsemane Baptist Church, established the choir in 1935. I was first introduced to the amazing history of the Wings Over Jordan Choir as a Junior High School student in Cleveland, where I had the exhilarating experience of singing in a Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) convention choir in 1974. Over the years, I have been blessed to study and write about the Wings Over Jordan Choir and interview alumni and friends of this legendary group for the Praying Grounds Oral History Project. In 2015, I took a bold step and founded Spiritual Gifts: A Professional Black Sacred Music Repertory Ensemble, embarking on a thrilling journey to Europe for the group’s inaugural tour during the Advent season. Under the direction of Maestro Glenn Brackens, our repertoire was a celebration of gospel, spirituals, and other powerful forms of Black sacred music.

Life got even more interesting after I moved to the Metro DC area in 2016, when a team member working on an exhibit for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) contacted me about information on the Wings Over Jordan that I had included in an earlier publication. In responding to that request, I was able to help facilitate the inclusion of materials about the choir in one of NMAAHC’s inaugural exhibits.

I returned to my hometown in December of 2019, and it warms my heart to see people around the world embracing the rich cultural expressions of African Americans from Cleveland and beyond. Reflecting on my journey from a Junior High School student to a published historian brings a smile to my face, especially when I consider the significant impact that the Wings Over Jordan Alumni & Friends group has had on my life. That awards luncheon truly felt like a full-circle moment, and I sincerely hope that the students who received scholarships and participated in the program activities on May 17, 2025, find even greater success in their future endeavors.

Left: Maestro Glenn Brackens and summer arts program alumna and luncheon MC.

Below: Dr. Regennia N. Williams, award recipient. (Photos courtesy of Regennia N. Williams)

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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.
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