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Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/ohfb

AAHP 311 Regennia Williams

African American History Project (AAHP) Interviewed by Marna Weston on June 19, 2013

1 hour, 5 minutes | 37 pages

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Program Director: Dr. Paul Ortiz

241 Pugh Hall PO Box 115215 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-7168 https://oral.history.ufl.edu

AAHP 311 Interviewee: Regennia Williams Interviewer: Marna Weston Date: June 19, 2013 MW: This is Marna Weston on June 19th, 2013 for the Samuel Proctor Oral History

Program in our studios at Pugh Hall, on the campus of the University of Florida,

today speaking with Dr. Regennia Williams from Cleveland State University. Dr.

Williams, who you’ll meet in just a moment, is this year’s winner of the Julian

Pleasants Award, which is an award to conduct research on our campus for part

of the year. She’s just completed her lecture which discussed her research.

Actually, had an ice cream social on campus over at the Smathers Libraries in

room 1A. The title of the lecture was “Art, Activism, Anthropology and

Amusement: Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy 1925 to 1955.” Without

further ado, I’d like to welcome and introduce you to Dr. Regennia Williams. Dr.

Williams, thank you for being here today.

RW: Well thank you for the invitation. It’s my pleasure.

MW: It has been a pleasure to spend this all too brief time with you. I can’t believe

you’ll be leaving shortly. What I normally do in the interview at this time is begin

kind of a biographical discussion, ask about your history, but I thought we might

change things up a little bit this time and give you an opportunity to reflect on

your receipt of the Pleasants Award, your research, and your observations about

being in our community for this brief time. So, at that I’d like to turn it over to you

for a moment.

RW: Okay thank you very much. This is my first time in the Sunshine State. We still

call Florida that. My first time in the state of Florida and it’s been amazing. I flew

in on the 9th of June 2013 and I’m flying out tomorrow morning on the 20th of

AAHP 311; Williams; Page 2

June, 2013. I came here to do research and it’s just wonderful to have the time

and also the money in a budget to make possible my travel this far away from

home. Home for me has always been on America’s North coast. I’m a native

Clevelander and all of my education, from kindergarten through the PhD, I

completed in the city of Cleveland. But I’ve had the opportunity to travel. It took

me fifty-four years to get to Florida and Florida is a beautiful place to be in the

world. And this is my twenty-first year teaching at the post-secondary level,

teaching history or urban studies and it’s the first summer in which I had not

planned to teach a course. So I actually had some time and when I received

word that I had been awarded the Julian Pleasant Travel Fellowship, it made me

very happy. Some people may look at the amount and think it’s not a huge

amount, but certainly it was more than I had in my budget for travel. So had it not

been for that grant, I can honestly say I would not have been here this summer.

But I’m glad to be here in Florida. The archival collection over in the Smathers

Library is really wonderful, so it’s just been a really great experience for me. And

then too outside the four walls of the library, I flew into Orlando and that was right

up the road from Eatonville, Florida. And I’ve always wanted to make that

pilgrimage to Eatonville to honor Zora Neale Hurston knowing that she really

loved this state. She wasn’t a native, but she was a transplant as an infant and

she always felt so highly of the people in Eatonville, Florida, that historic all Black

community where her father served as the mayor and then the pastor of the

church. But again, she talked about great things here in Palmetto country, to

borrow a title from a publication by another Floridian, who was also a great writer.


But I’m just discovering all kinds of things. Zora Neale Hurston said not so much

about Eatonville in Florida but she just said as an anthropologist, “You gotta go

there to know there.” I thought I knew something about Florida history and

especially about the literary arts of Florida. I found out I knew a few things, but I

learned a whole lot more once I made my way here to Gainesville.

MW: Could you tell us a little bit about the specific research that you do. I know you’ve

examined the Zora Neale Hurston papers and there’s incredible stories about

them, how they were almost destroyed. Perhaps you can relate some of that?

RW: Yes, one of things we hear a lot about is the fact that Zora struggled throughout

most of her life. We’re pretty sure now she was sixty-nine years old when she

died. She lied a lot about her age because she had to do some unorthodox

things to secure education for herself. And often it was easier to lie and say that

you’re still a teenager even though you’re twenty-six. Say you’re a teenager so

you can get the free education and then go off to college. [Laughter] Rather than

say “I’m a non-traditional student” and then being prompted to explain what

you’ve been doing for the last ten years since you weren’t in school. But in any

case, she was just an amazing woman and I know that she was not rich. We

understand, those of us who just have a general knowledge of the last decade of

her life, that she died in a welfare home. That she was buried in an unmarked

grave in Ft. Pierce, Florida. She died in January of 1960. They gave her a really

nice funeral, based on everything that I’ve read, in a church in Ft. Pierce and

then they buried her in the unmarked grave and that grave remained unmarked

for more than a decade and so it’s just an amazing story. Alice Walker, who was


working as a reporter at Ms. magazine, went in search of Zora Neale Hurston,

found the unmarked grave, put a marker there. And it now reads “Zora Neale

Hurston: Genius of the South 1901-1960.” We now understand, based on census

records and the family bible, that she was actually born in Alabama, not Florida.

She was actually born in January of 1891 and she died in January of 1960. So

again, some of her secrets I guess she thought she was taking them to the grave

with her, but we’re unearthing those things. Probably other things are being

discovered too even as we speak about this great woman who really loved

Florida, especially Eatonville, Florida.

MW: I guess there’s some irony that when she passed while she had been taken care

of so well in that community that when she was buried, someone went to burn

the home with all of her notes.

RW: Yes. And I believe it was something you asked me in the other question and then

I went off on another tangent. Let’s go back to the center. Those papers. They

were almost destroyed in the wake of her passing. The ones that survived are

actually housed here at the University of Florida in the Smathers Library in

Special Collections and certainly almost all of her books are in the rare books

collection, so it’s really wonderful to be on this campus and have access to those

documents. And you can see the damage that the fire did. You can see the water

damage from the gentleman who said, “No she was a famous writer, don’t burn

her papers. We need that.” And then just take a garden hose and put the fire out.

So you see all of that and that’s something that I don’t even, I don’t think we

would experience the research in the same way without being able to hold those


documents in our hands knowing that they’re encapsulated in what appears to

me to be plastic. But again to be able to turn the pages and sort of recreate this

woman’s history. We’re trying to piece it together. Even around the burn marks,

there’s a fragment of a letter here. There’s something really important that she

was trying to say to somebody in the world and we can sorta guess at the

meaning of some of those things. But that someone had the presence of mind to

put the fire out and say, “This is worth preserving. We don’t care that she was in

a welfare home. We don’t care that none of her books were in print. She was

somebody important and we need to preserve that history.” So, it’s just a

powerful, powerful testament to her genius I think. And searching for the word

she really is still, now how many years since her passing? Since 1960, is that

fifty-two years?

MW: Definitely fifty. Fifty-two, fifty-three.

RW: Yes, we can do the math right? Even historians need to do some math

occasionally. But yeah I think from 1960, fifty-two, fifty-three years, yes. This is

2013, so it’s wonderful to have access to that information.

MW: What are your observations on our community? Have you been extended that

Southern hospitality that people feel so proud of and the people that you’ve met,

the campus, the Alachua County Community if you could I guess just ask you to

drop the mask and be candid, but we’re tough we can take it. [Laughter]

RW: Everyone in this community is so gracious and for a few days in that first week on

campus, I thought it was just a campus community. You know the academy, this

is not the real world. But then when you put me in touch with one of my sorority


sisters and you know I was just waiting for the opportunity to say Delta Sigma

Theta while the recorder was on but Delta Sigma Theta sorority is celebrating its

100th anniversary in 2013. And so when you told me that you were in touch with

members of that sorority in the community and that they were active in African-

American churches and if I wanted to go to church I could. And you sent my

name and number to one of my sorors and she called me right away, Mrs. Mingo,

and the rest is history. I went to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and that

would have been Sunday the 16th of June. [Laughter]

MW: Mt. Olive.

RW: Yeah, Mt. Olive, 2013 and then we went out to dinner after church. She sat with

me in the same pew with the visitor. Her husband is playing the drums. Let me

see if I remember his name.

MW: G.W Mingo.

RW: Yeah and I thought you know is that George Washington? But no, just G.W.

That’s his name and he took us out to dinner and I had, for the first time in my

life, deep-fried gator tail.

MW: Oh that’s good.

RW: And I don’t even know if they serve that in Ohio, but I am in gator country and the

gator tastes wonderful. So yes, their southern hospitality is there. Just really kind

and supportive people. I said in the presentation around the lunch hour, that

historians, and not just me, I think any historian, we couldn’t do our work without

those archivists. The people who gather and preserve and then share with the

rest of the world all of these documents, whether they come to us in the form of


paper, documentary evidence, or oral history testimonies or transcripts.

Somebody has to do the difficult work of gathering everything together,

organizing it, cataloging it, putting together the finder’s aid, there’s an index

somewhere, and letting people know what you have and then making it possible

for them to access the information. So absolutely. I think the people of Florida are

wonderful.

MW: The Mingos are particularly endeared to my heart. Dr. Mingo, director of our

Outward Bound program here on campus for forty years, and then of course his

wife, Cynthia Mingo, very involved in so many activities with her church. And then

you also get to talk briefly to a member of the undergraduate chapter, Damia

Foster.

RW: Yes.

MW: Who has worked with our program here at the Samuel Proctor Program, so I’m

really glad that those connections worked out for you.

RW: Well thank you very much for introducing me to them.

MW: Your observations on our community and the opportunity for research have been

so very kind. I’d like to go ahead and turn our interview over to the section where

we find out more about you.

RW: Okay.

MW: So could you state for us first, what was your full name at birth and if there was

any part of it you don’t think we can spell properly, if you could spell that for us as

well for the transcribers later on.


RW: Sure. My name at birth was Regennia Ninette Williams and the spelling on the

first name is a little unusual. Spelled R-E-G-E-N-N-I-A and Ninette and Williams

the standard way.

MW: When and where were you born?

RW: I was born March 3, 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio.

MW: Okay now were you born at home or were you born in a hospital or what were

the circumstances?

RW: I was born in a hospital.

MW: Okay and do you know the name of the hospital?

RW: I believe it’s the university hospital with Cleveland.

MW: Okay and who are your mother and father?

RW: My parents are the late Lonzrine Moore Williams and my father was Nathaniel

Williams Sr.

MW: Could you spell Lonzrine please?

RW: Sure. Now her birth certificate will have something different because she’s

named after my maternal great-grandfather whose name was Alonso McKenzie.

So her name at birth was Alonzrine, she’s from Arkansas, and had some very

creative grandparents with the names. They had eleven children but she dropped

the A. They told me she dropped it because she thought Alonzrine was too

country. But Lonzrine is spelled L-O-N-Z-R-I-N-E and her maiden name is Moore.

MW: With two O’s?

RW: Yes M-O-O-R-E.

MW: Okay do you recall your mother’s date of birth?


RW: Sure, she was born June 26, 1929.

MW: And do you know where she was born?

RW: Yes, she’s a native of Arkansas. Little community called Aubrey in Leigh County,

Arkansas.

MW: Arby, so A-R-B-Y?

RW: A-U-B-R-E-Y, I believe it’s spelled. Aubrey Arkansas is the town in Leigh County.

MW: Leigh County. And your dad’s date of birth?

RW: He was born December 1, 1930.

MW: And where was he born?

RW: In Dell, Arkansas.

MW: With two L’s?

RW: Yes.

MW: Okay, let’s talk about your mom’s side of the family for just a second. I’d like to

try to take you back as far as possible that we can reconstruct. Some people

can’t go passed the grandparents, but as far as you can go. With your mother,

who were her mother and father?

RW: Her parents, her mother’s name was Eda Mae McKenzie and her father’s name

was William Genter Moore.

MW: And do you know where they came from or—

RW: Also from Arkansas.

MW: Okay dates of birth are probably not as—


RW: My grandmother I know was 1900. October of 1900. My grandfather, late 19th

century, if I had to guess, I would say around 1898. He was a little older than my

grandmother.

MW: What knowledge do you have of your grandmother’s parents?

RW: Not a lot. I do know that my great-grandfather was a landowner in Leigh County

in Arkansas because the land is still in the family. And sometimes there are feuds

about the land that’s still in the family in Arkansas, but Alonzo McKenzie was a

landowning Black man in Leigh County in Arkansas.

MW: And do you know the circumstances of how the land came to be in his title?

RW: No, that’s something that I’m going to investigate later in the summer of 2013.

The family reunion is the first weekend in August in greater Chicago and I want to

have some answers when I get there. And then get some more information. I’m

gonna interview my uncle, the one who was willing to talk, who turned seventy-

seven years old I believe this week. But he’s willing to tell me everything that he

knows about that side of the family, so I have to go with my recording equipment

in hand.

MW: Okay. Your mother’s father. His mom and dad, who were they?

RW: Well I don’t know that much about his family, except I know his mother’s name

was Elizabeth and I know that because I looked at the 1940 census. It was so

cute. My mother was there and I guess when the census taker came, they

reported that little Lonzrine was at that point I think ten years old. So I guess they

came before her birthday in June. But the census takers were there, so she’s one

of eleven children. But at that point there was a growing number of children in the


house. They didn’t have all eleven yet, but she was there, she’s ten. And my

paternal grandmother was living with them and her name was Elizabeth and I

don’t know about my paternal great-grandfather, but the paternal great-

grandmother was Elizabeth.

MW: Okay. Your dad’s mother or father, so Elizabeth would have been the mother, is

that correct?

RW: For my father?

MW: Yeah your dad, who are his mom and dad?

RW: Oh the other side of the family? His mother’s name was Ora.

MW: Ora okay.

RW: Ora Lee Williams.

MW: Okay.

RW: Maiden name Carter. And his father was Will Williams.

MW: And do you know their dates of birth or where they came from?

RW: My grandmother I know was from Mississippi. I’m not sure of the town but she

was born in the late 19th century.

MW: Okay. What do you know about her mother and father?

RW: Not a lot. I know that my—so that would be my paternal great-grandmother. I

know her name was Mary Carter and I don’t have any information about my

grandmother’s father.

MW: Okay, how about your grandfather’s, on your dad’s side, mom and dad?

RW: I don’t have any information about him. He was much older than my

grandmother. She was his second wife. He too was from that Arkansas-


Mississippi area, but again, don’t know anything about his parents. So there’s

lots of work for me to do as far as the genealogy is concerned.

MW: Now you mentioned eleven children. Your mom was one of eleven. Do you know

all of those siblings on that side?

RW: Sure. Yeah the oldest—let me get it right now. The oldest daughter, Modena.

Trying to do all the girls first. Ardela, Novela, Lonzrine, Blandelle, Ocimae, and

Loreen.

MW: And how about the boys?

RW: And the boys are Hughalie, Alvin, Erwin, and Sherman. Did I get all he boys? Is

that eleven?

MW: Yeah that’s four, seven and four.

RW: Okay, got them.

MW: And how about your dad’s side? Do you know all his brothers and sisters?

RW: Yes, I believe I do. See Lula was the oldest daughter. Annie Mae, Bertha, Jessie

Mae, David, Willy, Fred, George, Nathaniel. I think I missed somebody

somewhere along the way.

MW: You didn’t tell me how many, but you came up with nine.

RW: That was nine, oh he was the youngest of ten.

MW: Okay.

RW: Let’s try the boys again. Let’s see Willy, David, George, Fred, Nathaniel, let’s

see, Lula, Bertha, Annie, Jessie.

MW: Your dad? Have you mentioned him?

RW: Nathaniel.


MW: Okay.

RW: Okay, please forgive me. [Laughter]

MW: We could always fix it up later but nine, that’s pretty good. I mean twenty aunts

and uncles.

RW: Yeah, it’s a big family.

MW: Now why do you think, I know you got an answer for this, and I probably have an

answer too but this is just for our history here on the recorder, but why do you

think the families were so big back then on both sides as opposed to the size of

families now.

RW: Well these were, they were both farming families. My mother’s family owned their

land. My father’s family pretty much were sharecroppers, so they moved around

a lot. Tennant farmers, sharecroppers and so obviously it was very important for

him to own his own home and keep everybody together in one place because he

didn’t know any of that in his childhood. So as far as I know, these parents love

children and as they got older all of them were expected to help with the work on

the farm and they did that. In fact, my grandmother, just a really interesting

woman, she died young, she was my age when she died. She was fifty-four and

died of the same thing as Zora Neale Hurston, hypertensive heart disease, and

she had a stroke just like Hurston. But in April of 1955, so she died just before

her fifty-fifth birthday. But in any case, I believe that she loved all of her children,

but she was also a school teacher. So she has eleven children and she’s a

country school teacher, so that meant she had to live away from the home during

the week. So the older girls took care of the younger ones at home and then my


grandfather worked overtime as a farmer. And he had other men who helped to

work the land also in Arkansas. So it was just really interesting that she earned a

teaching certificate and I can’t find any evidence that she had a high school

diploma, but she received a certificate to teach at the grade school level. So the

rules were different back then in Arkansas.

MW: Do you have brothers and sisters?

RW: I do.

MW: Could you mention them from oldest to youngest please?

RW: Sure, I have four sisters. My oldest sister is Lana. The next sister is Erma, next is

Lisa, Kimberly Nicole is the baby.

MW: Okay, and no boys, it’s all girls?

RW: I have one brother who is Nathaniel Williams Jr.

MW: Okay. Did you have chores when you grew up? What kind of things did you and

your brothers and sisters do when you were at home to help the family?

RW: The sisters had more chores than the brother, because he was the only son. He

was my father’s namesake and so he was a really gifted musician and athlete so,

[Laughter], I guess he enjoyed more privileges than the girls. But we used to

wash dishes. We’d mop the floors. Oh goodness, we did everything. He had to

take out the trash. He didn’t have to wash dishes, but he had to put away the

silverware after we washed everything so I guess they figured that was enough

work for him. We had to make our own beds. We did everything, and this was

unusual, we did everything, except laundry. My mother did all the laundry for a


family of eight. And then in time my father’s mother came to live with us as she

got older, so she did all the washing for a family of nine.

MW: Now where was this family growing up at? Would you situate us?

RW: Oh in Cleveland on the East Side of the Cuyahoga River. That’s the Black side.

Cleveland was pretty thoroughly segregated in the 1950s when my parents

started having children. They were married in 1955 right after my grandmother

died. They got married in August of 1955 and then my oldest sister, their first

child, was born in August of 1957.

MW: Okay. Do you think that growing up in a city like Cleveland molded you in a

certain way to be the person that you are now and, if so, how? What were those

characteristics that came from being on the East side of the Cuyahoga River in

Cleveland?

RW: Well ours was a neighborhood in transition when we moved to Garden Valley. It

was an experiment of sorts because there was a master plan to build public

housing in Garden Valley that middle class people would want to live in. Not just

we’re housing the poor in one area, but we’re going to have some housing mixed

in with all these brick apartment buildings so in time they would call Garden

Valley “brick city.” But we grew up in a frame house. It wasn’t a huge house. It

was a very nice house with three bedrooms and a laundry room, [Laughter], of

course with nine people in the house eventually. And a nice little yard. My

parents were migrants. They’re part of that Great Black Migration to the North,

after World War II, so we always had a garden. They’re still basically farmers. So

my mother had roses and honeysuckle and peonies in the front yard, but my


father had the picket fence and the push lawnmower. So we had to mow the lawn

too. But he grew the food, so there are tomatoes, the best greens in Garden

Valley were grown in my parents’ yard. So yeah, it was a really nice I think

childhood because he worked very hard. He worked in grocery store and a

warehouse: A&P Grocery Store. I guess there’s still some around. Most of the

stores in Greater Cleveland closed just after he died around 1978. And he never

wanted my mother to work. As he figured, “I work hard, I pay the bills, you have a

job at home with six kids.” So my mother never worked outside of the home until

my youngest sister, Kimberly, was in school all day because then the oldest

daughters could help take care of her for four hours until my mother got off work

around nine o’clock at night. So I think I saw two people who were really

committed to their family, the community, the church and worked very hard,

encouraged us to do our best in school. We sort of got this reputation you know,

“That’s Ms. Williams’ kid” [Laughter] “You know they’re all smart”. So even if you

didn’t think you were smart, you had to work hard to live up to this reputation that

my mother had for sending smart children to a certain school. So yeah, I think it

had everything to do with who I ultimately turned out to be. There was something,

remember, no you’re younger than I am, but I’m gonna put this out there anyway,

we used to the autograph books whenever you got promoted. For us it was at

sixth grade and then the junior high school you do it again at ninth grade and

then when you graduate from high school. But the autograph books where

everybody promises to keep in touch and then the adults would put money in

there, “Good Luck” “Congratulations on your promotion to high school.” But I


remember my mother signed my autograph book in the ninth grade and she said,

“Whatever you decide to do, do it well.” And so you know people are going

through the book, taking a look at what other people wrote and this one guy, I

remember his name and I won’t mention it. He’s a business man now in Ohio but

he looked at what my mother wrote and he laughed. And I said, “What’s funny?”

because I like to hear people say, “Well done.” So I was like, “What’s funny about

what she wrote?” and he said, “What your mother wrote.” And I was so angry I

didn’t ask anybody else to sign that book. I took it from him because it’s not his

business really what the other people wrote. I’m thinking, “What is wrong with

these people?” So that’s the kind of person she was. She didn’t tell me, “Okay

you find the right man, you get married, you have a half dozen kids just like I did

or eleven like your grandmother did on my side or ten like your father’s mother.”

It’s just, “Whatever you decide to do, do it well.” And I really appreciated that

because I sort of grew up in the house knowing I could do anything I wanted to

do. I couldn’t break any laws, but within reason, I could do pretty much what I

wanted to.

MW: Did you count on that wisdom from the women in your home? You mentioned

you lived in a multi-generational home at some point, which is something a lot of

people don’t have that perspective now of having older great uncles or great

aunts or grandparents stay in the home. Were you able to count on wisdom from

that multi-generational connection?

RW: Well I should say my grandmother was ill when she came to live with us.

Physically she was fine, but dementia, Alzheimer’s. I don’t know what exactly the


diagnosis was, but she couldn’t live alone in Arkansas anymore. So my father

went to pick her up and she came to live with us, but she was a really tough lady.

She got married when she was thirteen years old and she had ten children. Ten

live births. I don’t know how many times she was pregnant in order to have, in

that era, ten live births. Her last child delivered in 1930 in a house with no indoor

plumbing. So you know that in itself says to me, “That’s a strong woman” and she

lived alone. I don’t know my paternal grandfather at all. They said he was a very

nice person but he died before 1959 because I never met him and that’s the year

I was born. So she had to live alone and all of her children left her home. There

were about four who stayed in Arkansas. I think my father left Arkansas running

after he got out of the army after the Korean conflict. But we always went back

for summer vacation. She lived alone. She had a pistol and a knife and nobody

bothered my grandmother. Yeah she’s really strong and staunch member of the

Baptist Church. But you didn’t mess with grandma. [Laughter] Because she was

prepared you know to defend her life if necessary. That’s the Jim Crow South

that she knew intimately. I mean with peaches growing on the trees in the

backyard; it was beautiful. Flowers blooming all over, no fancy houses, little

shotgun, but she never wanted to leave the South. Even when she came to live

with us. As sick as she was, she remembered enough about Arkansas to know

that Cleveland wasn’t Arkansas and she wanted to go home. I remember her

being a very strong woman.

MW: I’d like to follow up on that going home aspect a little bit and take you back to

your earliest memories of education. What was the first school that you went to?


RW: Oh my elementary school was Anton Grdina on 77th St. in Cleveland, Ohio.

MW: Who was the principal?

RW: The principal was Robert Hemmingway.

MW: Okay, you remembered that very quickly. What is it about Mr. Hemmingway

that’s so memorable for you these years later?

RW: It was just an amazing school at—let me say Cleveland was very segregated. So

we had our school desegregation case long time after Brown. It was in the

1970s, but all of the teachers and the principal, they were all African American.

But some of them were so fair, I grew up thinking they were White people. So Mr.

Hemmingway was one of those people. [Laughter] And I didn’t know until I was in

graduate school at Cleveland State University. No at that point I was working on

the PhD at Case Western Reserve University and conducting oral histories for

my dissertation. Ad someone who was a former deputy superintendent for

Cleveland public schools, her name was Dr. Wanda Jean Green, gave me a

copy of a newspaper article from a Black weekly, the Collin Post and it talked

about all the Black educators who were working in the city of Cleveland and there

was my principal Robert Hemmingway and all of these teachers who were so fair

that I always assumed they were White. But no, that’s how segregation worked.

White parents didn’t necessarily want their children to have Black teachers. So all

of the Black teachers were put in Black schools and that was supposed to be a

ghetto school in Garden Valley and there they were. They were amazing

educators, all of them.

MW: Who were some of those teachers that you recall?


RW: The kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Jasper. First grade was Mrs. Elston, second

grade was Mrs. Scaggs, third grade I don’t remember the first name so it was

Mrs. Lyons and then I went to another school in the fourth grade.

MW: What was the name of that school?

RW: Andrew J. Rickoff.

MW: Okay.

RW: Yeah and that was a middle class neighborhood so you had to ride the bus. They

gave us bus tickets. We rode from the ghetto. The working class neighborhood

too, the middle class neighborhood four miles up the road. And I was there for

the fourth grade with Mrs. Mescady, was my fourth grade teacher, and then I

went to another elementary school because there were a lots of opportunities in

Cleveland. Was a very insecure child so I tried to be perfect and get straight A’s

on everything. Because if I got an A-, I cried. [Laughter] And since nobody’s

perfect I had a few of those sessions where I really cried and by the time I got to

calculus, I was over it. You can’t be perfect in everything, but back then in

elementary school I worked very hard because I like to hear teachers and other

people say, “Well done”. So then they sent me from the enrichment class to

major work, which was for gifted and talented students for the fifth grade. And my

teacher was Gwendolyn Fry at Harvey Rice Elementary School. And I had her

for the fifth and the sixth grade. It was a combined class so they figured you

know, if you’re gifted you can handle it. The same teacher for two years in a row.

But she was pretty special because that’s when I discovered that teachers

actually compete with each other through their students. It’s like, “Oh Regennia


Williams got superior on all of the standardized tests.” And they’d be outside the

door comparing students. It’s like, “Okay, this is interesting.” And I think they did

that so that we would hear it to know that, “Okay, your work means something to

me. It’s not just what you get on your report card and take home. It lets people

know that I’m doing my job.” When you do well, when you compare this class

with all the other students in the county who took the exam, and then you’re

getting superior grades regardless of race, class, gender, this class can hold its

own. That’s what I learned from her. So I mean you just do your thing and try to

do it in an excellent way. Whatever you decide to do, do it well. [Laughter]

MW: After sixth grade, did you go directly to high school or was there a junior high and

then a high school?

RW: There was a junior high. It was Alexander Hamilton Junior High School.

MW: Now was this an integrated school or were you still in a segregated school

environment?

RW: Well it was a neighborhood. It was like Harvey Rice. Harvey Rice was in a

traditionally Hungarian neighborhood. “Old Buckeye” they called it “Little

Budapest.” There were so many Hungarians there at the turn of the 20th century,

but I’m there in the 1960s and I think I made it to [19]71 and then I started the

junior high school. But in any case that was a neighborhood in transition, was

rapidly becoming majority Black and Alexander Hamilton was similar. There were

fewer Whites by the time I got there, but there were a few.

MW: Were there tensions or especially in the northeast where these highly ethnic

neighborhoods, but it’s not ethnic in terms of how we think of ethnicity today with


Latinos and Blacks. The Hungarians, Czechoslovakians, people from Eastern

Europe and Europe would come to live in the big cities in the North and the

Northeast. So what was that transition like?

RW: Cleveland—well it was easier for me in junior high school and elementary school,

upper elementary school than it was for the White kids, because they were in the

minority. Now we had bullies who tried to corner you on the playground

[Laughter], so we knew who to stay away from. But I think it was harder for the

White students because they were in the minority and not all of them were

accustomed to being in that position.

MW: So you moved through middle school. Where did you go to high school?

RW: I went to Hawken Upper School in Gates Mills, Ohio. And it was really an

amazing place. It was one of the best college prep schools. I guess I didn’t

appreciate it as much as I should have. We’d like to say “in the country” and I

went there. The daughter of the warehouse worker with a third grade education,

who got the equivalent of a trade school education. My father, after he left the

army, received training in radio and television repair before there were color

televisions. He had to continue education but he continued to work five days a

week in a warehouse and then he had his own little repair shop in the house. So

that was kind of neat too. It was in the washroom, the laundry room where my

mother—he had a corner where he would repair radios and televisions. So that

was kind of neat. I guess he was an entrepreneur in that regard. But, in any case,

I heard about Hawken School and I said, “I wanna go.” And my father, again and

I think this has something to do with how we grew up, he said, “Private schools


are for White people.” [Laughter] That’s like, “I don’t have that kind of money.” So

then I had to find scholarships, but my mother was working part time then and

she wanted me to go to Hawken. And so I went for three years from the tenth

through the twelfth grade and it had been an all-boys school. So ours was the

first class of girls and I graduated class of [19]77 from Hawken Upper School.

MW: What kind of activities were you involved in in high school? What clubs or

organizations did you decide to participate in?

RW: I’m still a bit insecure but I love to sing and so I was always in the chorus. And

when I was at Hawken, we had a group. It was called “Spice.” And actually the

guys had it before I got there. But then they decided they wanted a female

vocalist.

MW: So that added the spice? [Laughter]

RW: Yeah so I thought I was Dionne Warwick in the [19]70s. You know, “I never knew

love before then came you”. I think that was Dionne Warwick. Anyway, yeah is

that Dionne Warwick?

MW: I think it is.

RW: Yeah okay. we’ll Google that.

MW: Well here’s my question though. Can you pipe a few bars for us or something?

Anything you’d like.

RW: [Laughter] I should never have put that out there.

MW: Well I’m just saying. It doesn’t have to be anything long. Just a little piece of

something.


RW: Well you know, let me confess. It’s my siblings. They are amazing signers. Every

single one of them. Now I was a music major for a couple of years. My brother

earned the degree in music and he’s a singer, plays piano, organ, guitar, and I

mean a nice guitar. My father got it for him when he was in elementary school.

Fender Rhodes, big amp. He purchased typewriters for me and my older sisters,

so I never learned to play the instruments. I took a few piano lessons.

MW: Well now the voice is an instrument. [Sings].

RW: So they—[Laughter] Okay, you sing. Let me name a song and then, oh you know

what song I used to sing though in high school?

MW: What’s that?

RW: And I’m not going to butcher it today, but it’s a beautiful song. Those people who

remember the [19]70s, when you listen to this you’ll probably recall Barbara

Streisand singing, let me get it right, “Evergreen.”

MW: Evergreen.

RW: Remember that song? “Love soft as an easy chair?” “One love is shared by two. I

found in you like a rose.” Yeah! Barbara Streisand, yeah!

MW: My mom might know that. I wasn’t a huge Streisand fan, although I recognize her

greatness. I mean she’s incredible when you see the concerts on TV and

everything. But Dionne Warwick I would know. Barbara Streisand I missed.

RW: Well Dionne Warwick in fact is coming to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a

museum which is located in Cleveland, Ohio right on the shores of Lake Erie,

downtown Cleveland. But she’s coming. I just got the email from the education

department either this week or next week or maybe Saturday the 22nd I think. But


any case, it’s a magic moment and I think Dionne was Whitney Houston’s cousin.

There’s some relationship there.

MW: An aunt—

RW: Yeah a family of great singers so I’m sure if Dionne Warwick were here today,

she would sing for you.

MW: Oh I’d go to the concert.

RW: Yeah but Reginnia is not gonna sing. So I’m not being contrary; I’m not in very

good voice today.

MW: I feel you, I feel you. This is a volunteer effort. So music played a role in your life

in high school. Any other clubs or organizations? Something you got started?

Something had to lead tp you being in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. at some

point in life. So there was something—there had to be something along the way.

RW: You know what it was? I had a voice teacher. This is after I got married, after the

birth of my first son in 1979. In 1981 I believe, so he would have been two years

old. I started studying voice with A Grace Lee Minns, who is a really amazing

person. She was an educator, a librarian, at Glendale High School in Cleveland,

but after she retired from her work at the high school level, she had her own

studio at the Cleveland Music School Settlement. In fact she’s still teaching voice

today at the Cleveland Music School Settlement. And I won’t tell her age

because I don’t think she would like that, but she’s a native of Snow Hill,

Alabama. And she came to Cleveland to do graduate work at Case Western

Reserve University, which had a wonderful school of library science. So, she was

my voice teacher. She’s a Delta and she’s amazing. And I thought “Hm.” I


needed or I wanted an organization that complimented what I believed as a

Christian. So Delta was presented to me as a sorority of college-educated

women. They’re members of a group that’s founded on Christian principles, but

really no sectarian ties necessarily. But I thought, “That’s the organization for

me.” Because I had experienced—it’s not abuse or anything, but just

encountered people who often had negative things to say about me going to the

college prep school. “Trying to be White,” “Talking White,” “Acting White.” What is

that? I took piano lessons when I was in junior high school at this majority Black

school. Now if I take piano lessons when I’m at the majority White school, I’m

trying to be like the White kids. No! Same piano in our house on 78th St., but now

I’m “White-minded.” So I wanted to get away from them, but I wanted a

historically Black organization based on Christian principles that also recognized

that education was important. I found that in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

MW: But you had to graduate to get there. So you left high school, where did you go to

college?

RW: I went to Cleveland State University.

MW: Okay.

RW: Yes.

MW: So once and forever, always, Cleveland State. [Laughter]

RW: Well you know what, I was accepted—it was interesting. When I was in high

school, I dated an older gentleman who became my first husband. We’re now

divorced. You’ll probably ask me what his name is.

MW: Well, if you want to offer that.


RW: Well we grew up together in the same church. Baptized on the same Sunday. His

name’s Allen Simpson.

MW: And what was the church?

RW: New Joshua Missionary Baptist Church.

MW: In Cleveland?

RW: In Cleveland. Yeah, so our parents were founding members of that church in the

spring of 1959, right after I was born.

MW: Okay and then of course there were children?

RW: Yes. My children are Michael Allen, after his father, and William David.

MW: All boys.

RW: Two boys.

MW: Two boys.

RW: And they were born in 1979 and 1984.

MW: Okay.

RW: So yeah, it was interesting. What were your question again? We were talking

about Cleveland State University and why—okay while I was at Hawken I was

dating Allen, who was a student at Cleveland State. And once I took the SAT—

and standardized tests, and I didn’t study very hard but I guess I did okay

because I think I was a National Merit Scholar or something or national

achievement scholar or something. But the one for minority students. And then I

had all these scholarship offers coming in and then there was someone from the

Air Force who said, “We like your grades. We like your test score. Sign up, we’ll

pay for all of your college and then you just have to serve after you graduate.”


And then somebody told me, and I really liked this man, that President Jimmy

Carter went to Georgia Tech. I thought, “I wanna go where this great Democratic

president went to college.” And the guidance counselor would tease me and say,

“So you wanna be rambling wreck from Georgia Tech?” “Yeah, just like President

Carter. I like him.” I remember that election. I was too young to vote, but I

remember that election. So I thought I was on my way to Georgia, but I had also

been accepted at Case Western Reserve University. But then my boyfriend

proposed to me. He said, “I don’t want you to go away for college. You stay here,

you marry me, we settle down start a family.” And so a lot of little girls planned

their weddings and I guess I had been planning mine for a while so, “Yeah okay

that sounds good.” So they called with the scholarship offers. “Nope. I’m getting

married. Nope.” So I was the only girl I think in my senior class wearing an

engagement ring at commencement. And then after I turned down all the

scholarships, he decided he wasn’t ready to get married. So then I went to

Cleveland State University.

MW: Wow.

RW: [Laughter] Well then, we got married anyway.

MW: Yeah, but that’s the pull of the okey-doke right there! You must have not been

pleased about that.

RW: I was so young. Really young. I mean that’s when I was seventeen, but we got

married when I was nineteen. So yeah.

MW: But you stayed around, wow.

RW: Yeah.


MW: I can just hear “Ring, ring.” “Can I get a bus to Atlanta please?”

RW: It was too late. Because I turned down everything. “Did you talk to the guy from

the Air Force?” “Yes” “What did you tell him?” “Told him I wasn’t going. I was

gonna stay here and marry you.” “Good.” And then he said, “Give me the ring

back.” So I gave it to him.

MW: And you married the same guy two years later?

RW: Yeah.

MW: Oh my gosh, that’s incredible.

RW: [Laughter] Young people do a lot of interesting things, but yeah.

MW: That is, to use the vernacular—this might be old now—but that’s off the chain.

Wow.

RW: I mean there was a lot going on. And plus you know—

MW: Well you stayed together, you had children together.

RW: Yeah and nothing’s easy. You just do your best. And yeah, I gave it the old

college try for eleven years, but yeah, the marriage did end.

MW: Okay now in between the marriage ending, which of course you had another

marriage, what was life like those little bit of years?

RW: Well life was pretty good you know. He was in school, I was in school, and we’re

struggling. It took a long time when you start raising families and taking classes

and working this job and that job. So we’re both working, we’re both in school,

we’re both trying to spend time with our oldest son. And then he graduated. He

graduated from Cleveland State so he’s a social worker. And I kept chugging

along, but then eventually I got a full-time job at Cleveland State in the registrar’s


office and excellent benefits. One of those benefits was a tuition waiver. So then I

could take six hours every term without paying out of pocket, so that helped. But

it still took me almost ten years to get the four-year degree.

MW: Well that’s just incredible though to start basically from the mailroom. You’re kind

of the mailroom to the CEO kind of example. You must really inspire so many

people at Cleveland State to see that you came there, you started out you were

an employee, now you’re a doctor teaching courses.

RW: Well can I tell you something about—here’s my testimony. It wasn’t the mailroom.

The guys in the mailroom were making some money, but in the office I started as

a transcript clerk in the registrar’s office. This was before they had online

transcripts. There was a permanent record card where we would post the grades;

we would put the label on the permanent record card. This is in early 1980s.

Started November [19]81 working in the registrar’s office. So I was a clerk. It was

the lowest paying clerical job on campus; I’m now an associate professor. So,

have I arrived? I don’t know, but it’s a step up from—

MW: “We’re moving on up.” [Singing].

RW: Yeah, from where I was thirty-two years ago. And so I have to think about that

from time to time when I’m moping around and think about what Zora had to go

through. I remember one of the documents that I read over in the library this

week, it says, “You know we have questions. How did she as a Black woman

survive in this majority White world of writers or the male-focused Harlem

Renaissance group of writers?” As far as academicians are concerned, she tried

to teach at the post-secondary level. She was too much of a free-spirit for that.


Even at Bethune-Cookman, she just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it in North

Carolina, Florida—just wasn’t her thing. She’s an independent thinker. She

doesn’t need all the rules and all the hierarchy, but I guess it’s kinda what I did. I

don’t know of anyone else at Cleveland State who [Inaudible: 53:43] I’m gonna

do this for my friends at Cleveland State. Some of my best friends are the clerical

workers. They say “Regennia, you started as a clerk?” “Yeah.” And so it took me

a while to get used to that, people reminding me. “Oh you’re the former transcript

clerk who used to be in the registrar’s office in the 1980s.” “Yup, that’s me. But

I’m not there anymore. That’s thirty years ago and you better work hard if you

want to pass my class.” [Laughter]

MW: What do you like about being in the classroom?

RW: I like being around the young people. And the non-traditional students as well,

but people who love history. It energizes me, because most of the students we

get in the survey courses are not history majors. And they feel often when they

come in that they’re being forced to take this class and they don’t understand

why they have to be there. But by the end of the semester, the overwhelming

majority are usually convinced that they haven’t wasted their money. So, I like

that.

MW: What’s your favorite part of history to teach? Or your favorite moment in the

classroom where you get to talk about a subject because I’m sure besides just

history you talk about culture and connection. You’re a very inter-connected

person that way. So when you’re doing your thing in the classroom, what is the

thing you like to do the best?


RW: I like the 1920s. Because census year 1920 is the first time that we have more

people living in urban areas than in rural areas. And so that’s not the migration

wave that brought my parents to Cleveland, but it’s the first generation of

migrants who were moving from field to factory and maybe they’re moving from

the farm to a big city in the South like Gainesville or Atlanta. And then maybe

they’ll leave Gainesville, Georgia, like my mother-in-law did, and come to

Cleveland, Ohio. So the migration and the Jazz Age and the Harlem

Renaissance. And Tony Morrison said in the first chapter of her novel, “Jazz” “the

War is over; World War I in 1919 and there will never be another.” The Great

War, it wasn’t World War I yet, it was the Great War. So we made the world safe

for democracy. We don’t have to descend into that hellish situation again. It was

a global conflict. It’s over. People are buying on credit. Now we have telephones

and cars. Detroit, they just churn them out as fast as Americans are willing to buy

them. And so there’s an optimism there. And then the bottom falls out of the

economy with the stock market crash. And we recover. But it takes the second

global conflict to lift us out of that. But then there’s some more optimism in the

post-war period. But there’s also this segregation that people are struggling with.

So again, the 1920s, however, was the first decade, for me at least, where we

have Black people and some have secured this education and they’re saying,

“Hey, I want that American Dream.” I don’t care Great Gatsby right, if it’s all just

window dressing and people eventually die, I don’t care. Get sclerosis of the liver

from drinking too much. But I want that. If that’s the dream, all the glitter that

goes along with living the high life in New York and other places. And so they’re


sorta pushing. The NAACP is new. Urban League is new. But yeah, so the

1920s, in New York especially, is a good time for me to study and teach in history

and focusing on that decade.

MW: I’m sure you’ll be back then for some A. Philip Randolph work and things like

that?

RW: Yeah, there’s a lot of—he’s from Florida too isn’t he?

MW: Crescent City, not far from here.

RW: Well I would’ve said James Weldon Johnson before A. Philip Randolph, because

Johnson is there. Someone said those publications he put out “The Anthology of

Negro Poetry” and “The Anthology of Negro Spirituals,” he’s just sort of the

“every man” for Black American men of letters. And he’s so sophisticated and

then he wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

MW: A. Philip Randolph was called the “Most Dangerous Negro in America” by the

attorney general.

RW: Yeah, well it’s probably that socialist messenger right?

MW: Yeah the soap boxes at Harlem, true. [Laughter]

RW: And it’s so interesting to read those things and then you finally, it took me a long

time, I think I had been teaching probably fifteen years before I actually heard his

voice. And he was so cool and so straight-laced. Buttoned-down, tie, and then

this is the dangerous radical that you’ve been warning me about?

MW: That’s what made him so dangerous.

RW: Yeah, but an organizer.

MW: Yes.


RW: He brought people together and he’s got roots in Florida. That’s interesting.

MW: Couple quick-hitters because I know unfortunately our time is so limited. I would

love to continue this for as long as we could speak, but first, your definition of

leadership. What is your definition of leadership?

RW: Well you know what this isn’t original and maybe one of your listeners will tell me

the source but I remember reading not so long ago that leadership can be

measured by a person’s ability to create opportunities for other people to be

involved in something great. So again, it’s not about looking behind to see how

many people are sort of mimicking you or putting your ear to the ground and see

how many people are parroting you, but you open up the door of opportunity and

say, “There’s greatness in there.” And then you invite other people to come in

with you. I heard, let me get the name right, oh please forgive me, he is a

playwright, “The Colored Museum,” and hopefully his name will come to me

before we wrap things up. If not, I’ll email it back to you, but he loves Zora Neale

Hurston and he is the one who staged Spunk for the first time. And he said—he

thought he was born in 1954. So he said to someone during an interview that,

“My generation was trained to invade the turf of your people.” So he was born in

the era of Brown. And I hope I’m remembering this correctly but he talked about

getting in the room. Brown made it possible for him as a playwright to get into the

room and now he’s done just about everything he wanted to do on Broadway.

And once he got in the room, he could get a seat at the table, and once he was

at the table, he knew that he was a leader and he could make sure that other

people not only got in the room, but that they also got seats at the table. And isn’t


that terrible? He talked about Hurston. This would be the perfect Hurston ending

and I cannot think of his name. But he was the playwright who is responsible for

“The Colored Museum.”

MW: It will come to you as soon as we stop this interview.

RW: Yes! Yes.

MW: Second observation would be the first family. Sasha, Malia, Michelle, and

Barack. What are your thoughts?

RW: Amazing individuals. Children of the [19]60s. The beneficiaries all the things that

the Civil Rights workers, field workers, the troops, and the leaders—

MW: Foot soldiers.

RW: The foot soldiers, thank you. Yeah the ones who were trying to register those

folks to vote in Mississippi in 1964 and risking their lives. Everything that they

fought for, I think for many people who lived to see that moment when he took

the oath of office for the first time, that their work was not in vain.

MW: [Cell phone notification]. Appropriate. It’s one of your sorors asking if I’ve seen

you. [Laughing].

RW: Okay, so again I apologize, maybe I’m tired, that I can’t think of this playwright’s

name.

MW: Okay. I’m thinking of August Wilson, Loraine Hansberry.

RW: No it’s an African American man who is still alive and he was just on Broadway

with A Free Man of Color.

MW: Now we can Google it as soon at the interview is over.


RW: Yeah well I can do that now. Let’s see if my phone’s working. Okay now this is

embarrassing, but this is just to remind the students who are listening that even

your teachers don’t have all the answers. And those of you who take your

phones to class, help your teachers out from time to time. We wanna Google

“Colored Museum” here and see who the playwright is. Because he’s also the

one who stages Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston. “The Colored Museum” is a play

by George C. Wolfe.

MW: George C. Wolfe. Wow there it is.

RW: Yes!

MW: Just like that!

RW: Okay, so yeah, just an amazing playwright. I believe he’s from Kentucky, not

Florida. But I believe he’s from Kentucky and that his mother did graduate work

in the state of Ohio just north of—

MW: Well guys this shows the value of Wikipedia.

RW: Yes, absolutely! I love this technology. It puts the world at our fingertips.

MW: Dr. Regennia Williams, on behalf of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, I’d

like to thank you for being a part of this interview that we conducted and

congratulations on your receiving the Julian Pleasants Award this year. And just

you’re a wonderful person. It’s great to be in your presence. I just want to take

this opportunity to edify you, to lift you up, that you continue to have great

success in what you’re doing and with our thanks this will conclude my portion of

the interview. The last thing we’ll hear is final privilege from you. Any comments


you would have or observations and when you’ve exhausted those, that will

complete our interview today with our thanks.

RW: Well I just wanted to thank you and everyone else here at the University of

Florida in Gainesville. Again, this is gator country. There’s just gators all over the

place and they taste good too; gator tail it’s a wonderful delicacy from Palmetto

Country here, also known as the state of Florida. And lots of beautiful sunshine

too. So thank you for your hospitality, and again, I hope I haven’t worn out my

welcome because I would love to come back to Florida.

[End of Interview]

Transcribed by: Sandra Romero, November 19, 2015

Audit-edited by: Anupa Kotipoyina, April 9, 2018

Final edit by: Ryan Morini, February 23, 2019

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