| | Abstract: | The Greater Cleveland Project was a non-profit organization whose purpose was to ease the implementation of court-ordered desegregation in the Cleveland (Ohio) Public Schools. The desegregation of the schools was ordered by federal judge Frank J. Battisti as part of his decision in the case of Reed v. Rhodes. The Greater Cleveland Project formally organized in May 1976, having grown from an ad-hoc committee within the Interchurch Council of Greater Cleveland. The project dispensed information about desegregation, held seminars, and gave lectures to citizens and educators to promote non-violent desegregation of the schools. Prominent in the leadership of the organization were Leonard Stevens, Daniel Elliot, Jordan Band, Stanley Tolliver, and Francis Hunter. In 1978, Judge Frank J. Battisti order the formation of the Ofrice on School Monitoring and Community Relations at the suggestion of the federal court's Special Master and the leadership of the Greater Cleveland Project. Funded initially by the Interchurch Council, the Greater Cleveland Project was also funded by the Cleveland Foundation and the George Gund Foundation. Additional funding was provided from the federal government's Emergency School Aid Act. The Greater Cleveland Project ceased operation in 1981 when federal and local funding was not renewed. The collection consists of correspondence, budgets, funding proposals, and legal briefs relating to the desegregation case of Reed v. Rhodes. | |
