Karamu House

Karamu House in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, is the oldest African-American theater in the United States. Many of Langston Hughes's plays were developed and premièred at the theater. In 1915, Russell and Rowena Woodham Jelliffe, graduates of Oberlin College in nearby Oberlin, Ohio, founded what was then called The Neighborhood Assn. at 2239 E. 38th St. establishing it as a place where people of different races, creeds and religions could find a common ground. The Jelliffes discovered in their early years, that the arts provided the perfect common ground, and in [1] 1917 plays at the "Playhouse Settlement" began. The early twenties saw a large number of African Americans move into an area in...