Lunch with the Libraries: Celebrating Ethel Ennis, Baltimore's First Lady of Jazz

Raynetta Wiggins-Jackson embraced the power of music, expressive art, and history during her formative years in Birmingham, AL. She later turned her interests into formal study earning a BA in music from Berea College and a MA and PhD in ethnomusicology from Indiana University. Her work has focused on the research, performance, and preservation of African American music with an emphasis on sacred music in film and media. She is also passionate about the intersections of education and community engagement and partners with artists and educators to research and celebrate the important contributions of African Americans in the arts. Recently, she served as the Manager of Choir Curriculum and Performance at a Washington, D.C. based arts organization, where she developed and coordinated educational and program content for their resident community choirs. She currently serves as the Inheritance Baltimore Curatorial Fellow for Africana Collections at Johns Hopkins University.

Tonika Berkley is the Africana Archivist for Special Collections at JHU Sheridan Libraries and is co-director of the Inheritance Baltimore’s Community Archives Program. She has her MAA in Applied Anthropology/Heritage from University of Maryland-College Park and her BA in Sociology/Anthropology from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Ms. Berkley is a historical researcher, museum educator, humanities facilitator and curator, and has worked for various museums and institutions in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, including the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and Scribe Video Center. In 2018-19, she served as Research Coordinator and Curator of prototype physical and digital exhibitions for “Education Will Be Our Pride: The Colored School at the Peale (1878-89)”, and curator of a 3D scanned tour of the Peale building, based on the history of Male and Female Colored School No. 1. Ms. Berkley also coordinated the development of a microsite, “School1,” an online repository for the history of 19th century education of African Americans in Baltimore City and surrounding counties. As the Africana Archivist, she has co-curated two exhibitions for Sheridan Libraries, “Community Archives: Preserving Black Baltimore” and “Black Foodways: A Culinary Diaspora” Exhibitions - Sheridan Libraries (jhu.edu).