Virtual Opening of Cozad Bates House
Cleveland has a rich, awesome, inspiring and largely untold history of its citizens resistance to slavery,and their participation in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. Joan Southgate, at the age of 73, wanted to honor that history by walking from Southern OH to St Catharines in Canada along a path of the Underground Railroad. Since then Joan and her supporters have been working to save the only antebellum house left in University Circle, the Cozad Bates House, and turn it into an education center about the local UGRR. After many years it will be ready to open in September 2020. Now there is a pandemic so we need to create a virtual opening in the form of a video to show people what it looks like now. We want to take people on a tour on line until they can visit in person and after. Also before the pandemic we gathered people together in small groups and told stories of people and events from the Underground Railroad. We call these stories and discussions, Beloved Community Dialogues, inspired by Martin Luther King's vision of a Beloved Community in which there is economic and social justice for all.