- [Announcer] Production of Applause, an Ideastream Public Media is made possible by The John P. Murphy Foundation.

The Kulas Foundation, The Stroud Family Trust, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(jazz music) - [David] Coming up, an Ohio museum documents the lives of African-Americans in Massillon.

We spotlight this year's Cleveland International Film Festival, and the Cleveland Orchestra takes us home with a stirring performance inside Severance Hall.

Hello, and welcome to Ideastream Public Media's Applause.

I'm David C. Barnett.

The Massillon Museum is assembling an exhibition documenting the lives of African-Americans in this historic Northeast Ohio city.

Museum staffers are gathering the memories and artifacts of people whose stories were left out of the history books.

- This is really nice, but- [David] Marva Dodson is a Massillonian through and through.

That's what they call you if you live here and feel a part of this former canal town, former steel town, about 10 miles West of Canton.

Her parents' families moved here from Alabama decades ago.

- They worked hard and were able to purchase a home on 13th Street, Southeast Massillon.

- [David] Her mother was a domestic worker who got $6 a day, and her dad worked in the mills.

But up until recently, such stories of black Massillonians weren't well documented.

And when it comes to school, Dodson says she didn't get any sort of history about people who looked like her.

- Oh, no, not at all.

We had Ohio history, American history, and world history.

None of the three included black history.

- [David] And that's one of the reasons that the Massillon Museum is gathering the stories of African-Americans who trace their heritage to this town.

The museum recently hosted a Black History Archives Day.

Area residents were invited to stop by the museum with their family photos, documents, and stories.

- In our collection, for the most part, it's mostly donated artifacts.

So whatever the people have given to the museum is what we have to pull from.

So it was brought to our attention that a lot of what we share is from the Civil War era, you know, the underground railroad and kind of the late 1800s.

But that was really where our collection and our archives stop, as far as donated things and stories.

So we realized that maybe people didn't know that they could donate their artifacts here.

- And this had to be about 1946 and 45.

- [Woman] Circa, 1945/46.

- Yep.

- [Woman] Okay.

And do you know each one of the... - This is Andrew Perkins.

- [Woman] Okay.

- And he's buried in Ross County down in Chillicothe.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [David] It's not the traditional model you might assume is used for building a collection.

It isn't a curator traveling to a distance city to dig up the bones of an ancient culture, it's uncovering some history closer to home from the people who lived it.

- We did three community archives days to kind of have an open house come and let us scan your photographs, you know, and while you wait, you can peruse our collection of unidentified photographs and peruse things that we've already collected.

And then at the end of our scanning, you get your items back and you get a USB with those scans on them.

We posted some oral history workshops.

So how to go about interviewing your family members.

- Yes, we only could live on a certain part of the town as it was called the Boondocks.

That's way out where you had to have running water, chicken running around, and, you know, head out the houses and things like that.

Yes.

(old lady laughs) - We have reached out to, I believe we're up to 10 different interviews with community members.

- They got the idea that we gotta live with the white and the blacks, and regardless to who it was after, you know, everybody began to realize, you know, that's what we got, this is what we gonna have to do.

- [David] One of the biggest artifact collections came from Marva Dodson.

- Wait, do I have it written here.

My grandmother was coming to visit us from Alabama.

She traveled by train and we met her at the train station right over here off of Erie Street in Masillon.

- [David] Her family has collected local African-American history for years in the form of newspaper clippings.

If someone spotted a story about a black person in the news, they got off the scissors.

- In my growing up, there were not a lot of articles that were in the paper about them.

So when we would see something, of course, you know, that was a rare occasion.

- [David] After the word got out that she had collected all this material, Dodson was invited to make presentations around town.

She bought large pieces of poster board along with some gold lettering, and she created thematic displays that told some of the stories she had gathered, and there were so many stories to tell.

- From 1911 to 1969, Masillon did not have a black attorney.

Now, what does that tell you?

- [Man] Yep.

- Yes, Masillon has a rich history of African-Americans and they're a very accomplished people who walked among us, lived with us, socialized with us that were just a part of our lives, and their importance has been minimized up until now.

So hopefully, this history project will bring about a change.

I hope it won't be temporary, like February is Black History month, and then after February, you don't hear anything.

(Marva laughs) - You know, we call it missing history because it was missing from the historical record.

Yeah, I mean, if we're missing the contributions of African-Americans in Masillon, then we're really not telling the full story of the history of Masillon.

So it's been so important to fill in these missing history pieces, these gaps in our collection and our archives, and our understanding of how this community lived and worked, and contributed to the wonderful town that it is today.

- [David] The exhibition, Missing History of Masillon Unheard African-American Stories opens in June.

You'll find more details at arts.ideastream.org.

It's time once again for the Cleveland International Film Festival.

In person screenings return this year at the festival's new home in Playhouse Square, beginning, March 30th, and we've got a preview for you.

Artistic director, Mallory Martin speaks with Ideastream Public Media's, Carrie Wise.

- There are several films with Ohio ties in the festival, including one about high school show choir.

And it's interesting to see that there's two sisters from here who worked on this film in Northeast Ohio.

What can you share about it?

- So this film is just about as fun as you can imagine it to be, but also there's some really serious things going on within the show choir competition world.

So it's all Ohio, it focuses on four high schools; Solon, Strongsville, Garfield Heights and Ross, which I think is closer to Cincinnati, and Audrey the director is from here.

She'll be coming in for the screenings.

And she did a really great job with showing the tension that can happen within this very competitive world of show choir, but also analyzing that most of these schools have zero funding to support these choirs, and it means a lot to the kids who are doing them.

You'll see, they're very serious about it and it can help them go pretty far after high school too.

- Another Northeast Ohio oriented film is the "Erie Situation" that's looking at the state of Our Great Lake.

Can you talk a little bit about this one?

- We've had films about Lake Erie before in the festival, but nothing that's this focused on exactly what happened in Toledo in 2014.

So this film really does look at that and how the toxic algae bloom that happened then in the Toledo area got into the drinking water and they had no drinking water for three days at that point.

And so it sort of starts there and then examines what's been happening since then.

There's been a lot of calls to help fix that and, you know, to help fix the Erie as a whole.

And one of the lines that I loved from this movie the most is from a subject in the film, I think it's in the trailer where one of the women says that Lake Erie is really canary in the coal mine for the Great Lakes, right?

So we should be paying attention even though, you know, Lake Erie affects Cleveland very much too.

We have a lot of the same issues of what was kind of going on in Toledo, but it can spread even farther than that.

- Meanwhile, for sports fans out there, there's a documentary about a legendary hockey team in Washington, DC.

Tell us about "The Cannons."

- So "The Cannons," another submitted film which is really great directed by Steven Hoffner and A.J.

Messier.

I know Steven's coming to the festival and we just found out that he's bringing two of the teenagers that are featured in the film, Robert and Rayvon.

So this is a documentary that focuses on mostly a man who's a coach, coach, Neil Henderson who's been coaching this team, The Cannons hockey team, youth hockey team out of DC since the 70s.

He founded the first minority youth hockey program in the country.

He is still coaching at 81 years old, which is amazing.

And so this looks at the history of the team and then also focuses on these two teenagers in particular who are in their senior year of high school and about to graduate, and talks about a city that really still struggles with a lot of racism and poverty, and what these boys are contemplating their next steps after they graduate and move on from this team that has been so important to them.

- One of the films, "One Pint at a Time" looks at the lack of diversity in brewing beer.

And we hear from several black-owned breweries.

Tell me a little bit more about this one.

- This film in particular is a big focus on how important it is to support black-owned businesses, but especially within the craft, brewing industry, which is huge in Northeast Ohio, right?

But I, for one also don't know of any black-owned breweries in the Cleveland area.

The statistics in the film, they'd say, under 1% of all the breweries in the US are Black-owned breweries.

So it's really interesting and they talk about the history of beer too, how there's roots back to Africa and Egypt and trying to really change the misconception that the black people aren't consumers of beer and how important it is to own what they're consuming too at the same time.

So I think this one I'm really excited about I hope it can get as many people in as possible.

- Well, with 300 plus shorts and feature films, there really ought be something for everybody.

Are there any other films this year that you're particularly excited about?

- Another documentary that I think is really important especially for the city of Cleveland to watch is another film from Pittsburgh, or Pennsylvania.

It's looks at Pittsburgh and what's happening with their medical community there specifically around UPMC, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which is like most hospitals in the country, technically a nonprofit hospital, but it examines what happened there in the last few years, which was really controversial when UPMC decided they were no longer going to accept Highmark Insurance, which between the two industries they really kind of have monopolies over their industries in Western Pennsylvania.

For me, this is important.

My family's from Pittsburgh, my cousin used to work at UPMC, and I think it also travels very well to a lot of cities, including Cleveland in terms of an ongoing, I feel like for the last five years or so we've been showing documentaries that are really focused around patient advocacy, and what's been happening in the US healthcare industry, which I think we all can agree is in need of some help and some reckoning in terms of putting patients first.

- [David] The Cleveland international Film Festival runs from March 30th until April 9th in Playhouse Square.

And then the viewing moves online with many of the films available for streaming at home, from April 10th until April 17th.

Janet Macoska has captured the top rock stars with her camera here in Cleveland.

On the next round of Applause, Macoska looks back at her career and how it spotlights our town's rock and roll history.

Plus, we meet a guitar maker with blues in his blood who discovered a dark secret in the woods of North Carolina.

And Cleveland musician, Gavin Coe shows us his guitar made from the history of the Coe family.

You'll see all of that and more on the next Applause.

I say it's tea time in Akron, thanks to a local entrepreneur with a passion for this English tradition.

Pull up a chair for some cucumber sandwiches, strawberry scones, aromatic teas, and lots of conversation.

- I've been doing just one business for 25 years even though I don't look it.

(Renea laughs) So stepping out doing something totally different, like you see challenges, but you have to work your way past it, you can't give up.

Giving up, that's not an option, and it's definitely not an option for me.

(upbeat music) My name is Renea Woods-Baylor.

I'm the president of the Tea Lady Incorporated.

So I grew up at the dinner table with our family.

I'm a third generation business owner in my family.

As a kid, I'm listening to my parents talk about their business.

So I'm just excited to keep that tradition going.

I've been in business as an accountant.

I've owned my own firm for over 22 years and I just enjoy being an entrepreneur and just starting this new business is just a breath of fresh air.

I am the first African-American woman to own a tea room here in Summit County, so I'm very proud of that.

One of the reasons why I started this business is because when I was married, I was married to an executive chef and I was like, Ooh, I get to live my little tea dream through him.

So he could prepare all the food, then I could set the table and put my china out.

And then five years ago, he passed away with kidney cancer.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted to get out of doing anything that was stressful.

So when I thought about it, what gives me joy?

Let me see what it is.

And it's tea.

I love doing tea parties.

Tea time is meant for conversations, like you can't be sitting across from someone this close and be on a phone.

I wanna talk to you, see how you've been doing, what's going on in your life?

And so it's a lot of conversation going on and I believe that now tea time is best way to experience people coming together.

We're very English style, we're not American style tea room.

I love that fact that we are unique in that way.

So for our guests today, we served a three tier tea time, and we had the English style, cucumber deal tea sandwiches.

We had also our strawberry and cream heart shaped tea sandwiches, our berry scones with strawberry jam, and then on our top tier, we had all the sweets you can imagine.

A lot of people don't know that when you're sharing it with another individual, you go to each level together, and you usually have three courses when it's an English style tea.

What's been amazing about this is that people are finding me from across the country.

It's a destination place, and I am so grateful, but I'm so glad that people enjoy doing what I love to do.

I would say that a lot of people don't get to live out their one dream, and I've been able to live out two of them, and I'm so grateful.

And I hope that shows every time I pour a cup, I really do.

- [David] For more in our Making It series about Northeast Ohio entrepreneurs like The Tea Lady, visit arts.ideastream.org.

Throughout much of the 20th century, black fashion designer and business owner, Amanda Wicker made her mark on Cleveland.

While it's been more than 30 years since her passing, the Western Reserve Historical Society is teaching a new generation about her local legacy.

Ideastream Public Media's Carrie Wise has that story.

- [Carrie] When Amanda Wicker moved to Cleveland nearly a century ago, she put her education to work.

Having studied teaching and sewing, she started her own business out of her home training others in dress making.

- She's launching this business, in basically what is the era of the great depression, that's when her business is taking off, and she's a widow, a childless widow at the end of the 1920s and through the 1930s, but she doesn't give up.

- [Carrie] Wicker's determination paid off.

Not only did she create unique designs for herself and her clients, she helped others do the same.

- Well, she had started out with a business in her home with, you know, a single client, teaching them how to sew and turned it into this huge school that taught teenagers, adults.

She taught, you know, high fashion design couture techniques, but also if you wanted to be trained in garment industry factory work, she could train you on machines that way too.

- [Carrie] Wicker moved her business out of her home and established the school at East 89th Street and Cedar Avenue in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood.

In tribute to her own fashion instructor in Washington, DC, Addie Clarke, Wicker named her business, The Clarke School of Dress Making and Fashion Design.

- I really liked the fact that she's an alumni of Tuskegee Institute, and of course, the founding principal of that school in Alabama was Booker Taliaferro Washington.

And he was someone who preached self-help for black people.

So it was an industrial and a normal school.

Certainly lots of jobs available in manufacturing, sewing, textiles, you know, creating the fabric, working with the thread, and then creating the garments once the the fabric has been manufactured, and so I like to think that Booker T. Washington would have been proud of that Tuskegee alumni, who eventually studied in Washington, DC, and then made her way to Cleveland and became the focal point of a burgeoning black fashion community here on America's North Coast.

- [Carrie] For decades, Wicker celebrated Cleveland's black fashion scene with annual shows.

The large scale events featured models wearing the latest designs, live entertainment and scholarship awards for students.

- She called her fashion shows the Book of Gold, and you get a program with the gold cover and it was sort of part graduation ceremony for students, and then part, just a way for locals to display their work because the fashion shows were kind of a mix of student work, Amanda Wicker work, but also they would bring in local milners to showcase their hats on the models.

- [Carrie] Wicker designed clothes throughout her life, from wedding dresses to suits and evening wear.

More than a dozen of those creations, as well as her photograph collection were donated by her niece to the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Those photos and designs live on in a display now on view at the Cleveland History Center - I think like playful is a good word for her style.

So fun, a little bit of sparkle sometimes, fun silhouette.

I have a personal favorite, it's a sort of chartreuse green dress that's covered in a gray lace, and then on the back, it has a detail that's almost like sort of half of a cape.

It's like on the one hand, somewhat conservative, but then has these little twists.

- [Carrie] Wicker also had a talent for helping the community look its best.

She was an active member of Antioch Baptist Church and the Cleveland NAACP.

She taught her trade for more than 50 years until selling her school and retiring in the late 1970s.

- I think a lot of people don't necessarily think that teaching someone sewing is a form of activism, but it can give you a skill to become something different, it can help support a community.

- The freedom of expression, I would have to say associated with fashion, design and dress making, I think that's something that black women in particular came to appreciate in the years following the end of the civil war and certainly something that Amanda Wicker was the expert on, and she taught other people to express themselves in excellent ways.

- [Carrie] Her legacy lives on through the exhibit, Amanda Wicker Black Fashion Design in Cleveland.

(jazz music) (orchestral music) - [David] We end our show with another Cleveland orchestra performance from its online Adella series.

Here's Franz Welser-Most leading the orchestra in a gorgeous piano concerto by German composer, Johannes Brahms.

(orchestral music continues) Thanks for stopping by.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett.

Join us here at this time next week for Applause.

- [Announcer] Production of Applause on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by The John P. Murphy Foundation.

The Kulas Foundation, The Stroud Family Trust, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.