The above still is taken from the Cleveland Public Library’s introductory video for Dr. Regennia N. Williams’ June 2019 three-part oral history series. The series considered, among other topics, the transformative role of religion and spirituality in student leadership development and the recent social histories of the United States and South Africa. (Image courtesy of Catherine Young, videographer, Cleveland Public Library.)
If anyone doubts the significance of the work of the Black Church in the global community and its contributions to recent world history and culture, I am convinced that many of those doubts will be settled during the 2020 season of events that will commemorate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My ongoing research for “Praying Grounds: African American Faith Communities, A Documentary and Oral History,” for example, continues to reveal important information about the role of church leaders and congregants during the Modern Civil Rights Era (c.1954-1968), especially as that work relates to the activism of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Photo collage for the Praying Grounds Oral History Project, which is housed in the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University.
Moreover, as far as voter registration and education initiatives are concerned, from the 1960s to the present, Cleveland’s historically black congregations have frequently worked in collaboration with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other organizations to help citizens understand their political rights.
Ethnomusicologists also readily admit that Black sacred music has inspired everything from Rock ‘n Roll to Soul, a fact this is clearly evident in the work of Little Richard and Aretha Franklin.
The fact that more than a dozen individuals–including librarians and teachers, expressed an interest in helping with the copy editing and proofreading of Praying Grounds transcripts in January 2020 suggests that RASHAD will soon be able to make this collection of life stories available to students and other library patrons via the Internet. I look forward to working with our friends at CSU to share these transcripts with the rest of the world and shed more light on the topics mentioned herein.
The Rev. Dr. Mylion Waite, Estefany Rodriguez, and Jasmine Elder shared their oral history narratives with us in the summer of 2019.
Finally, I invite you to visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvJUDWn62iLF_JqXq0HpzWoPXkJtXkfJz to find out more about a related oral history project that considers, among other things, the role of religion and spirituality in student leadership development in both the United States of America and South Africa. Made possible with in-kind support from Cleveland Public Library, this 2019 oral history project includes the narratives of the Rev. Mylion Waite, Estefany Rodriguez, and Jasmine Elder, the three African American CSU alumni pictured above (left to right).
Regennia N. Williams, PhD, regennia@gmail.com
The RASHAD Center, Inc. 