Finding aid for the Clara P. Smith Photographs

Biography of Clara P. Smith

Clara Pearl Sowell Smith (1917-2009) was born in Sayerton, Alabama, to Nish and Florence Sowell. She moved to Cleveland, Ohio, with her family in 1927. She was a civil rights activist and social worker in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1950s and 1960s. She was president of the East 88th Street Club and the Wade Superior Neighborhood Association and co-founded the the Hough Area Council and the Bell Neighborhood Branch of Gannett Goodrich House.

A resident of the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland for twenty years, Smith was a member of the Hough Citizens Committee and helped to spearhead an early housing rehabilitation program there in 1960. As a member of the Hough Area Council, Smith directed a Summer Youth Program that provided cultural enrichment programs to Hough children. As the Charperson of the School Committee, she co-chaired a parent group that marched in protest of half-day classes due to overcrowding for area students in 1961. She also led a sit-in at the Cleveland Board of Education, demanding answers about academic and discipline problems in area junior and senior high schools. As president of the East 88th Street Improvement Club, she planned block parties and fundraisers for the United Negro College Fund.

Clara Smith was the first neighborhood caseworker aid to be assigned in the Cleveland War on Poverty program in Hough. She served at the Goodrich Hough Community Information Center, connecting families to health, education, and welfare services.

In 1966, Clara Smith attended the White House Civil Rights Conference entitled "To Fulfill These Rights." She met with President Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the conference. Upon her return to Cleveland, she campaigned for Carl B. Stokes in his successful campaign to become Cleveland's first African American mayor in 1967. She began working for Neighbors Organized for Action in Housing in 1968, eventually serving as Director of Neighborhood Services from 1970-1972.

Smith moved to Woodmere, Ohio, in 1972. She worked with the Woodmere Advisory Council on several projects to beautify Woodmere, and she volunteered at the Orange Senior Center. Smith was instrumental in founding an African American history program in the Orange public schools and served on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Essay Contest Committee at Eastview United Church of Christ. In 2005, Smith moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Clara Smith was married to Herman Smith. The couple had six children.

Scope and Content

The Clara P. Smith Photographs, ca. 1940s-2001 and undated, consist of 36 black and white and color photographs and one CD-ROM disk containing photographs assembled for a 2001 event in honor of Clara P. Smith.

This collection will be useful to researchers studying the history of the Sowell and Smith families in Cleveland, Ohio, in the last half of the twentieth century. Those studying the history of the African American community and African American women in Cleveland and Woodmere, Ohio, will find this collection useful. The collection primarily documents the family of Clara Pearl Sowell Smith and does not illustrate her political or civil rights activities.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The researcher should also consult MS 5264 Clara P. Smith Papers.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Persons:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] PG 610 Clara P. Smith Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

These photographs were removed from MS 5264 Clara P. Smith Papers. Gift of Clara P. Smith in 2004.

Processing Information

Processed by Margaret Burzynski-Bays in 2014.

Detailed Description of The Collection