Abstract
Charesha Barrett, a Cleveland native, educator, consultant, genealogist, and co-founder of the Lee-Harvard Memorial Project, reflects on growing up in the Lee-Harvard neighborhood and her work to preserve and share its history. Barrett discusses Lee-Harvard's legacy as a place of community, Black excellence, and intergenerational connection. She recalls neighborhood places such as John F. Kennedy High School, St. Henry Parish, Kerruish Park, Lee-Harvard Shopping Center, Harvard Community Service Center, and businesses such as Gardell's Drug Store, Joy of Music, and the Ju Va De nightclub (a successor to Dearing's). She also explores broader themes including education, racial transition, population exodus, neighborhood disinvestment, homeownership, gentrification, and the importance of preserving local memory as the neighborhood continues to evolve. The interview also includes discussion of Barrett's family history, including migration from the South, connections to Karamu House and the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black women's U.S. Army unit in World War II, as well as her current efforts to build connections between Lee-Harvard and Shaker Heights through United by Lee, bus tours, youth programming, community dinners, and conversations about the Shaker Heights barricades that have severed Lee-Harvard from Shaker's Lomond neighborhood since 1976.
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Interviewee
Barrett, Charesha (interviewee)
Interviewer
Culp, Dawn (interviewer); Souther, Mark (facilitator)
Project
Green Book Cleveland
Date
10-21-2025
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
55 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Charesha Barrett interview, 21 October 2025" (2025). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 723007.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1455
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
