(gentle piano music) - [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 & Culture.

(gentle piano music) (upbeat jazz music) - [David] Hello, I'm David C. Barnett.

Welcome to Northeast Ohio's Emmy Award-winning Arts and Culture show, "Applause."

A home in Oberlin is being converted into a museum to honor the legacy of Wilson Bruce Evans.

He was a man of African-American descent who led the Wellington-Oberlin Rescue, one of the lesser known events that sparked the U.S. Civil War.

Evans was born in North Carolina in 1824.

His mother was a free woman of color.

In the 1850 census, Evans identified himself as mulatto, a term no longer used today, to identify someone of African and European descent.

- Being mixed probably was a lot better than being black, but not perfect for him.

I think he probably had a better life than the enslaved or a lot of free black people.

I don't think it was easy for him in the South, and obviously wasn't because they left.

- [David] In 1853, Wilson Bruce Evans, his wife Sarah, and family left North Carolina, a pro-slavery state, and moved north to the free state of Ohio.

A carpenter by trade, Evans built his home in Oberlin that still stands today.

He owned and operated a cabinetmaking shop along with his brother, Henry Evans.

- They do have a planing mill here in Oberlin.

He's a man who has done an apprenticeship.

His brother, Henry, has done an apprenticeship in carpentry before that.

And they have experience with different kinds of wood, different kinds of tools.

- [Phyllis] Where they lived before they came to Oberlin, and you know, they got their skills, I'm sure that they were happy to be able to use them in a town where people were free.

- [David] The city of Oberlin was founded in 1833 by John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart, Presbyterian ministers who sought to build a religious community that would adhere to strong Christian values.

Oberlin grew into a strong hold of emancipationist who sought to abolish slavery.

Within the city limits all men were free.

- Oberlin had vowed in the early 1850s, never to allow a fugitive to be returned to their captors.

- [David] On September 13th, 1853, the city's opposition to slavery was put to the test.

John Price, a runaway slave from Kentucky residing in Oberlin was captured by slave catchers and taken to the neighboring town of Wellington, Ohio.

Evans and other members of the community responded quickly.

- John Price is seen being taken in a wagon to Wellington where they're going to await a southbound train, to bring them back to Kentucky.

The town gets mobilized to fight back.

- They literally pulled the door open and lifted him over their heads, down the steps, into the buggy and took him away.

And I think that was, it was celebrated because people were proud.

I mean, I'm even proud telling that story because one of the things is that... there were black people and... they were willing to risk whatever it was.

They knew about the law.

They were willing to risk it because they weren't gonna let it happen no matter what the cost was.

- [David] After spending a few days in Oberlin, Price made his way safely to Canada.

Wilson Bruce Evans, his brother Henry, and the 36 men who took part in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue weren't as lucky.

Cuyahoga County marshals arrested the men for violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves.

Evans spent three months in jail.

All charges against the men were eventually dropped.

Inspired by the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, two members of the Evans family joined abolitionist John Brown on his ill-fated raid of a U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which was meant to spark a slave revolt.

- Lewis Sheridan Leary, who was a brother-in-law of Wilson Bruce Evans and Henry Evans, and John A. Copeland who was their nephew and then they joined in this Harper's Ferry insurrection.

Leary was killed during the raid and John Copeland was held and tried.

- I know they knew they were risking their lives and they were willing to risk it.

Lewis Sheridan Leary had a little baby in at home, I think.

He's leaving his young wife and child.

- So when he's executed for the John Brown uprising, Copeland becomes a martyr.

Leary has already been a martyr on the field and the people of Oberlin, they immediately declared that they will raise a monument in their name.

- [David] Two years after the raid on Harper's Ferry, 11 Southern states succeeded.

From 1861 to 1865 the Union and Confederate armies fought over a person's right to freedom.

Eventually Wilson Bruce Evans enlisted in the Union army.

- I would imagine he was like many men of color committed to a fight for emancipation.

Quite a few men of color who actually come to Oberlin to enlist into the Ohio colored troops.

- Here's the opportunity to fight for your own people's freedom.

Not let somebody else do it, but I'm gonna fight.

I wanna be in the fight.

I wanna show them that we can be brave and we can fight.

And in my opinion, at his age and with his family, that's what he wanted to do.

And I can't imagine anybody could've stopped him, I just think.

And his family history has lost these young men.

And I can't imagine that anybody could have stopped him from going.

- [David] After the end of the war, Evans returned to Oberlin to live out the rest of his life.

The home that he built in the city over 150 years ago still stands today.

It sits as a reminder of one man's tenacity, bravery, and commitment to those who fought for equal rights and sought freedom.

- Wilson Bruce Evans is an amazing character because his story is an American story.

It's an African-American story of the struggle for freedom and equality, but it's also an American story because it tells us so much about what still needs to happen in order to create a truly, racially just society.

The Wilson Bruce Evans home is the only standing structure I know of that was actually built by the hands of an African-American abolitionist.

And so just walking into this beautiful building brings about a sense of what this struggle for freedom, for racial justice really was about.

- I am very excited about this house.

I'm excited because it's an example in Oberlin of a house built by a black man, with his brother.

Working together, they built this house and it's still standing.

And they were examples of black folk fighting for freedom, not just somebody else fighting for them.

They were in the thick of the battle.

They were willing to risk their lives.

And to me, you don't get any better, it doesn't get any better than, you're no more committed.

That if you're really willing to risk your life, that's a commitment.

- [David] In 2021, the National Park Services National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, which recognizes emancipationists who fought to end slavery, accepted Wilson Bruce Evans's house as an Underground Railroad Site.

Plans are to refurbish the house, turning it into a museum and a place of learning.

("Yankee Doodle") If you've lived in Cleveland for a while, you're probably aware that the East and West sides of town are often at odds with one another.

History tells us that this rivalry dates back almost two centuries, when Moses Cleveland and his Connecticut Land Company first arrived in Northeast Ohio.

- When Moses Cleveland, and his group came here originally in 1796, they were only surveying east of the river.

The Europeans started settling on the other side of the river, and that became Ohio City.

- [David] Ohio City was chartered in 1818, just one day before Cleveland.

Both cities saw a rapid growth in population and expansion.

Goods and services flowed east and west by way of the Center Street Bridge, that was more of a pontoon-like contraption than a bridge, in the area of West 25th Street.

- It may have been operated with chains that would pull the floating part of the bridge across the river and back.

We don't know exactly.

There's no real description of it that explains the mechanics of how it worked, but it was a floating bridge.

- [David] To improve trade, in 1836 the city of Cleveland began work on an alternate crossing, at Columbus Avenue, south of Center Street.

- [Judith] They were spending $15,000, which was a lot of money in 1835, on a new bridge.

Sturdy, in place, with a drawbridge in the center to let the ships come in, just like we see today.

Solid, attached to either, and not a floating bridge.

Bigger, more traffic.

- [David] Ohio City feared the new bridge would cripple business.

- People that had built the Columbus Street Bridge were planning on that area of the flats becoming the center.

They even called it Cleveland Center.

That to them was going to be the premier shopping, living, staying place in Cleveland.

So you've got this competition.

This competition going for people to buy goods, to sell goods, to stay, to buy food, basically economics.

- [David] When the Columbus Avenue Bridge opened, Ohio city business owners were furious and boycotted the bridge.

And Cleveland Mayor John Willie responded.

- So they decided to take down the floating bridge, which of course would mean no traffic going through Ohio City, which upset the people of Ohio City.

And they said, "Oh no."

- [David] The Mayor's reason for halting operations may have had less to do with being snubbed by his Westside neighbors and more to do with lining his pockets.

Mayor Willie owned land along the site of the new bridge.

- They are the ones that bought up all the land in what is now the Columbus Peninsula, that east bank of the flats area.

They purchased that land.

They were speculators, and looked to develop it.

You were elected Mayor sometimes because of your wealth, because of who you were, and that you own the land, and that got your name in front of people.

That's why you became Mayor.

So yeah, that's definitely something that I, you look at it and you kind of shake your head.

But that happens more frequently than we might like to imagine.

- [David] 1836, the issue turned to violent when a group of Ohio City residents gathered at the Columbus Street Bridge to tear it down.

- The Ohio City people marched down and tried to take pickaxes and shovels and whatever they had, and destroy their end of the Columbus Street Bridge.

Which is a lot more sturdy than the floating bridge.

Eventually they tried to dynamite it and to blow it up.

- [David] Cleveland Mayor John Willie, and a group of armed militiamen clashed with the residents of Ohio City until the Sheriff's department intervened.

- There were guns drawn, the sheriff was injured.

Some reports say he was conked on the head.

Some people said that he was just pushed down in the melee.

And it's kind of funny, going to war over a bridge, but people could have been really, really hurt.

- [David] Eventually the courts ruled that the Center Street and Columbus Avenue Overpasses had the right to operate.

But nothing could bridge the divide between East and West sides that still lingers today.

- This could be at the heart of it.

And of course we are a city of bridges, and eventually we had many, many more bridges, but I think this folk memory lasts a long time.

- [David] In 1850, the city of Cleveland annexed Ohio City.

("Yankee Doodle") Coming up on the next "Applause," We enter the Julia De Burgos Cultural Arts Center through its Doors to my Barrio Project, featuring more than a dozen Latino artists from Northeast Ohio.

And artist Beth Hemsworth has lived in several countries and experienced many cultures.

We explore how the rhythms and patterns from all over the world are represented in her work.

Plus a mother and daughter team that's been making art for over 40 years.

All this and more on the next round of "Applause."

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, artist Talle Bamazi created a series of paintings that visualize the virus and it's effect on the world.

Let's head to Columbus for a closer look.

- My name's Talle and I'm from Togo West Africa.

I get here 1995 from West Africa.

I was invited to have a show in Philadelphia.

And so I just started going to school.

And then later on went to New York Academy, graduate.

And then later on, I decided to come to Ohio, my ex wife and I, so we decided to search.

And so when I search, I find out Ohio, and especially in Columbus, they have a major world known collectors.

And I was like, "Wow, sweetheart, that's where we going."

(upbeat music) I was very surrealist at that time.

Kind of change as I came over there, I kind of find my way.

I kind of master all style now.

So going to abstracts, realism.

And so I can understand all cultures and I can answer any questions and any style.

My role is document the moment.

And that's what I'm doing.

(gentle music) You seen a symbol of a Corona virus, I began to introduce them.

The first one was the other one there, which is a death.

There's no one that will not die.

If you born, you're gonna die.

Anything that's being created will dispart.

If you understand that rule, you will live longer and peaceful.

(gentle music) When you look at them, as dark they are, they beautiful.

As dark they are, you see the beauty in.

So in this moment right now, I appreciate it.

Say every second that I live, for me is a grateful time.

So I use that wisely.

(gentle music) I present life with the eggs.

Anytime you see eggs in my paintings, mean life.

(upbeat music) And the Calabash, I always put a Calabash inside my world because this is the symbol of life.

Because that's, I think for me, that's the beginning of a conscience of a human being.

(gentle music) Anywhere you go, you will see the Calabash.

It just is nice effect is Africa.

We use that daily, just to drink our wine.

Daily we have that.

The queen used to be the juiciest time.

They, there's a different way that this is served in Africa.

(gentle music) It's beautiful, it's gonna, it's earthy, it's beautiful when you look at it.

(soft upbeat music) I'm a human.

And as long I will leave, I'll be human.

I don't care who you are.

When I met you, when I met anyone, I want us to have experienced of a human being that we don't have that normal.

We let that go.

I want everybody to know that I love everyone.

I don't care where you're from, what you do.

Bad, good, I love you.

(soft music) If we can love each other, what else can you give someone besides love?

(gentle music) - [David] Thrity Umrigar moved to the US from her home in India to study in the early 80s.

Umrigar says she lost her heart to this country and decided to put down roots in Northeast, Ohio.

Decades later, she's released two new children's books as love letters to the immigrant experience.

"Binny's Diwali" about the ancient Hindu holiday.

And "Sugar In Milk," a retelling of her favorite Persian folk tale.

- What I've done in this book is I've revived an ancient, Persian Indian legend, and I've sort of modernized it.

Because it's a story about timeless things like kindness and generosity and hospitality and immigration and welcoming people into their new homes.

And frankly, it's a story that I used to tell my adult audiences on book tour very often.

And every time I ended my talks, by telling that story, I would sense this softness that would come over the audience, people would smile.

They would sigh, they would clap their hands in delight.

It was clearly a story that worked with adult audiences.

And then one day I woke up and I thought, my goodness, I think I've been telling the story to the wrong audience because the people who really need to hear the story, who I imagine will truly, truly get the meaning of the story and respond to it, are children.

And that same afternoon, I sat and I wrote "Sugar In Milk."

"Sugar In Milk," begins by this young child coming to America to stay with her aunt and uncle.

We don't know why.

All we know is that she's terribly homesick and she has no friends in this new country.

And then one day auntie says, let's go for a walk and they do.

And while they're walking, auntie tells her about this ancient legend.

And this is a story about how people from what used to be Persia arrived in India.

So when the Persians landed in India, they were met at the seashore by this Hindu king who had absolutely no reason or no desire to give them refuge and let them in.

But of course there was a language barrier, so the story goes that the king asks one of his men to bring him an empty glass.

And he proceeded to fill it all the way to the top with milk.

And he pointed to it as a way of saying, look, I'm sorry, but we are full up here, we have no room for strangers.

We have no room for more people to come into our country.

And the story continues that the Persian leader of this expedition, was a very smart and quick-witted guy.

And he proceeded to take out some sugar and he dissolved it very, very carefully into that glass of milk.

And then in turn, he pointed to it as a way of saying, look, if you do let us stay, not only will we not disrupt your way of life, but we will actually add sugar to it.

We will sweeten it with our presence.

And the story ends by the Hindu king being so moved by this gesture and by the wit of this other guy that he flings his arms open and welcomed them into the country.

And I should add that this is indeed the story of my ancestors who came from Persia and were led into India almost 1,000 years ago now, as what we would today refer to as refugees.

The difference that I had seen in this country, between when I came here as a grad student in the early 80s and the kind of welcoming country that I found, the friendliness stuff, hospitality, just everything that we treasure and value and love about America was on display.

And frankly, that's one of the reasons why I decided to stay.

I had a perfectly good life in India that I could have gone back to, but I just lost my heart to this country.

And what has happened in the last few years, they'll kind of hardening of the arteries, so to speak.

The hardening of people's hearts, the lashing out at immigrants, it started but lashing out at illegal immigrants, but now it's like, there's just something else in the air.

And I thought if there was ever a moment to retell a story about kindness and goodness, and the benefits that both sides get when cultures intermingle with one another, something that I believe in very strongly, I mean, I just felt like this was the right moment to tell the story.

And just maybe by learning something about a different culture and about a very ancient people, it might help people move forward, which we absolutely need to do in this country.

So "Binny's Diwali" had a very different origin point and that Diwali is known as the Festival of Lights.

And it's predominantly a Hindu holiday, although it really is celebrated, especially in India, for sure.

It's, we were not Hindu, but we celebrate the Diwali as happily as anyone else did.

Because I grew up in this very secular neighborhood and this very secular city at the time.

And it was anytime you got a chance to party, that's what you did.

So Diwali has always had a special place.

It's a very visually beautiful holiday.

Also, people light these beautiful little oil lamps all around their apartments on the floor, or outside their apartments to usher in good luck.

And as somebody who went to Catholic school in India and was very familiar with Christmas and celebrated Christmas, even in my Zoroastrian home, I was struck by that.

So few people in America knew about it.

So I wanted to tell this old, old story, but I wanted to give it some modern relevance.

And so I came up with a figure of Binny.

Who's just this little Indian American girl, she's going to school, her teacher, Mr. Boomer has asked her to tell the whole class about Diwali and she's extremely excited to do so.

She dresses in a new outfit, her mom drives her to school, and then it's time for her to stand up before the class and tell the story.

And she freezes.

She's just is so nervous that she loses her thought and she doesn't know how to proceed.

And then she remembers the story of these little oil lamps and how Diwali itself as a holiday that celebrates the triumph of good over evil.

And this gives her the courage to control her own fears and her own stage fright and stand before the class and tell the story.

So it's a story within a story.

- [David] And that's it for today's show.

For more arts and culture stories, go to arts.ideastream.org.

Thanks for watching.

I'm David C. Barnett.

Stay safe and warm and we'll see you next week, for another round of "Applause."

(upbeat music) (gentle piano music) - [Narrator] 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 & Culture.