Carl Ewing had traveled to Cleveland’s African American Cultural Garden twice in his life before he took on the cause to finish its plans.
The second time was about a decade ago. He had first heard of the garden spot off Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd. in 2011, but drove past it mistakenly. Then, years later, Ewing tried again, even asking a nearby woman where exactly this supposed garden was.
“I said, ‘Sister! Sister! Where’s the Black garden?’ She said, ‘Right here, brother, right here,’” Ewing recalled. He looked around at empty grass, trees. “And I said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no. That will never do.’”
Ewing had a lightbulb moment. “We have to do something not for us,” Ewing said. “But for our children’s children. To be able to stand here one day and say, ‘This is the African American Cultural Garden.’”
Ewing, the president of the Association of African American Cultural Gardens for the past 14 years, recently helped usher in what will be the final phase of Cleveland’s only dedicated monument for Black history, a symbolic homage to centuries of history set to be completed in October.
The second phase of the garden, following the “Door of No Return” built in 2015, will be a small terrace fronted by a small fountain. Above that fountain—a symbol of hope—will sit a large slab of black-stained concrete with an impression of the North Star and Little Dipper, themselves celestial guides for escaped slaves and for relocating Black Southerners during the Great Migration.
Symbols that jarred a range of emotions at Thursday’s groundbreaking, from shaky-voiced sermons to toe-tapping during James Brown songs to emcee Obie Shelton’s rendition of “Life Up Your Voice” on violin.
It has been a long time coming, after all: The pursuit of a fully-realized African American Cultural Garden is nearly seven decades in the making.
“This is more than a groundbreaking,” Lavita Ewing, AAACG’s development chair, told the crowd of politicians, architects and clergy. “It’s a homecoming. It’s a declaration. It’s a moment when vision, persistence and love finally take physical shape at our feet.”
In 1961, former Cleveland City Councilman Leo Jackson proposed the idea for a spot in the Cultural Gardens for Cleveland’s Black representation—not just “American” representation. It took 16 years for that spot to be dedicated, with help by a schoolteacher, Booker T. Tall in 1977.
Fundraising issues lingered throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 2003, gardens delegate Cordell Edge created a committee and even hired an architect.
Mayor Frank Jackson, the only Cleveland mayor present on Thursday, had formed his own task force during his time at City Hall, which resulted in the first section of the garden — the “door” residing on the top of the hill.
He was elated to see the full vision come to fruition. “You know, it’s been a long time,” Jackson told Scene after the ceremony. “But we’re here now. This is something that needed to be done.”
The second phase carries a price tag of roughly $2 million. Money so far has been collected from local non profits, foundations, the city, the county and a handful of donors. It’s unclear how much money still needs to be raised.
But at Thursday’s groundbreaking, attendees said it was time to celebrate.
“This is definitely Oh happy day,” County Councilwoman Meredith Turner told Scene.
Her mind went to other homages. To Jesse Owens’ downtown statue. To Stephanie Tubbs Jones’ gallery at Cleveland Hopkins. But no monument to Black culture came close to what would be finally finished in October.
“We’ve been overlooked for a long time,” she said. “This isn’t just for the city or the state, but for the world.”
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