Charles Beard (1923-1993) was born December 15, 1923, in Macon, Georgia. As a young boy, he and his family moved to Newport, Rhode Island. He enlisted in the United States Air Force during World War II and was sent to Tuskegee Air Force Base to become a fighter pilot. Charles Beard attended the public schools of Newport, Rhode Island, and the Institute of Design in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1945, he moved to Cleveland, and in 1947 he attended Western Reserve University. In 1960, Charles Beard married Peggy Lanton in Cleveland, Ohio.
Charles Beard's advocacy for community development and organizing was visible through his involvement in local organizations, as well as in his professional career. In 1946, Beard served as a junior city planner for the City Planning Commission, and in the 1950s he worked for the Cleveland Urban Renewal Agency. In the late 1950s, he was promoted to chief city planner for Cleveland, and became the Director of PATH (Plan of Action for Tomorrow's Housing) in the 1960s. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, he held a position as a government liaison with the Federation for Community Planning. Beard was also a founder of the Friends of Shaker Square and Fair Housing, Inc. He played a significant role in organizing the North Coast Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. in 1993. He died on February 4, 1993.
The Charles Beard Papers, 1919-1975 (1945-1970), consists primarily of reports, speeches, proposals, correspondence, agendas, annual reports, financial statements, newsletters, notes, ordinances, bibliographies, booklets, tables, pamphlets, publications, lists, and maps.
This collection is of value to researchers studying city government, community planning, community redevelopment, and social welfare. This collection includes material on Beard's advocacy against residential racial segregation and housing and employment discrimination in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. The majority of the material deals with his career as Chief City Planner for the Cleveland City Planning Commission.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by document type and then chronologically.
All photographs have been removed to The Photograph and Print Collection
Processed by Artricia Love in 1999
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4802 Charles Beard Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Peggy Beard, 1995
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.