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The DVD collection also documents residents who were born
and raised in Toledo before 1960.
The collection will be presented to the public on February
16, at 6:00 p.m., at the Kent Branch Library and Art Tatum
African American Resource Center at 3101 Collingwood Blvd.
The documentary features interviews conducted with, among
others, Ohio House of Representative Edna Brown, Toledo City
Council President Wilma Brown, Toledo Council of Black
Nurses founder Mary Gregory, NAACP Toledo Chapter President
WilliAnn Moore, First Church of God Senior Pastor Robert
Culp and former Toledo City Council member June Boyd.
“All the interviews were conducted with a specific set of
questions about race relations and [the interviewees]
accomplishments,” said Faith Hairston, manager of the Kent
Branch Library.
The DVD collection is named after the late Edrene Cole, a
noted educator and local historian who interviewed many
African-Americans in Toledo and also collected materials
such as photographs and documents of historical
significance. Cole will long be remembered for her 1972
master’s thesis at The University of Toledo on Blacks in
Toledo which still serves as a reliable research tool for
local media, city officials, historians and academics from
across the country. That thesis laid the foundation for a
Toledo Oral History project.
Cole, along with a handful of other area historians such as
Lillian Ashcroft-Eason, Ph.D., who is also one of the
interviewees in the collection, was dedicated to researching
and keeping alive the disappearing and often invisible
legacy of the past for future generations, particularly
focusing on genealogical roots. She died in 2007 at the age
of 75.
Cole, whose parents came to Toledo in 1935, attended
Washington, Gunckel, Robinson and Scott High School and
earned undergraduate, master’s and education specialist
degrees from UT. For many years she was a teacher and then
an administrator with Toledo Public Schools.
Cole also helped start the UT EXCEL program with Helen
Cooks, Ph.D., was active in the Toledo Chapter of the NAACP
and was a member of the Read for Literacy board.
The interviews in the collection were conducted in May 2009
by Willie L. McKether, Ph.D., assistant professor of
anthropology at UT, taped by his brother Kenn McKether of
Dynamic Group and edited by Above the Shop Studios of
Toledo.
The debut will consist of a showing of excerpts from the 21
interviews, followed by a panel discussion about
African-Americans in Toledo. Panel members will include some
of the interview subjects. Additional viewings and
discussions are scheduled for March 9 and March 23.
Also interviewed for the project were: Merle Abbot whose
family immigrated to Toledo in 1927; Cheryl and William
Catlin, niece and brother, respectively, of Wendell Catlin,
African-American developer and realtor; Oscar Haynes, who
was raised in Brickeys, Arkansas; Marjorie Hoskins, who came
to Toledo after the death during her childhood of her
parents; John C. Moore, a native Toledo; Maude Rixey, whose
parents immigrated to Toledo from Illinois; Rev. John E.
Roberts, pastor of Indiana Avenue Missionary Baptist Church,
who was born in Bryant, MS; Fred Russell, who was born in
Little Rock, AR and Eddie Turner, who spent 30 years with
the Toledo Police Department.
The Library’s Edrene Cole Oral History Collection series was
funded in part through an Institute of Museum and Library
Services ISTA grant awarded by the State Library of Ohio.
Edrene Cole
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