OHIOANS YOU SHOULD KNOW!

[Kofi Khemet]

Most of you will remember taking a class on the history of your state when you were in Junior High (middle school) or High School. Most of what we learned we forgot as soon as the test was over. I know I forgot, at least that fast.

Well, it dawned on me that if we had studied people that we saw in our neighborhood or who had more relevance to our daily lives we might have remembered our local history and been greatly enriched in the process.

For instance, I've been working with the staff and students of Stewart Africentric Elementary School in West Akron. The school is located on Vernon Odom Blvd., just up the street from the Helen Arnold Community Learning Center and is named after Horace Saint John Stewart a local resident of the Akron community.

Vernon Odom was a prominent member of the community and director of the local Urban League for many years. Helen Arnold was formerly the Chair of the Akron Public School Board and Horace Saint John Stewart was a photographer active in many community organizations, he also documented much of the history of the community through his work as a photographer.

What if anything do most of us know about the person our schools were named after? From Preschool through College, most of us know little or nothing about the namesake of the educational institutions we attended and even less about the people, places or things the very highways we ride on everyday are named after. Yet, all of these monuments to the achievements of humanity, both far and near, for all times, were meant to inspire us to achieve even greater heights in our time.

This brings me to the question of the day. How can we be inspired to greatness when we know little or nothing about the people who should inspire us, and our children know even less?

Our new feature, "Ohioans You Should Know," will focus on an area I grew up in as a child, Ohio. In this feature you will encounter many people of all walks of life and nationalities, that had an impact, both good and bad on the current natives of Ohio.

Our focus will be on Northeast Ohio, in particular, but overtime will expand to encompass all of Ohio. This is just the first stage in what will become a much larger project, but we have to start somewhere. As always we move from "the center to the circumference."

As we expand the project we could use your help in documenting the important people from your area of Ohio. They need not be nationally known. The only qualification is that they resided in Ohio for a period of time, or had a significant impact on the people and places in Ohio.

In order to get the full benefit of the work we're doing here you'll need to become my "friend," which only requires your eMail address and password when you sign up.