About our venture

I am JoAnn Artis Stevens and I am excited for you to visit our page. I am the CEO and Founder of Rosenwald Center for Cultural Enrichment. We have established many firsts in our town of Snow Hill and Greene County, N.C.. We had our first Black History Parade in the early 2000's honoring Mrs. Gracie Golden as the first African American Teacher to integrate Greene Central High School. We garnered support from the general public and communities. Over the years our parades grew, with some years having less participation that others. We hosted a stage play in the South Greene Gym that featured the now actor in many of Tyler Perry's Shows, Cocoa Brown. We held one of the first Economic Development Conferences at the South Greene Gym. We held after school programs, summer camps, established partnerships for the WIOA program. Our organization was responsible for West Harper Street's first economic development program, renovation "The Corner Cafe' establishing it as a business incubator,  a cafe', upstairs apartments as well as a street campaign with the Town of Snow Hill for curbing and gutters for the streets. We renovated the Horace Darden building with a small museum in it partnering with N.C. Museum of Natural Science, the  Agricultural Extension Office for youth programs, the Greene County Department of Social Services to assist young women with the Back to work program. We obtained grant funding to hire an Architect, Mr. Al Gold to complete designs needed for a renovation project for the Snow Hill Colored School, we renovated the back wing, the bathroom establishing an office for Rosenwald Center. The roof was repaired for stabilization of the building. We successfully nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, the Snow Hill Colored School, The Rosenwald "South Greene" Memorial Ball Field and led the process by completing the surveys for Zachariah School. Rosenwald Center hosted our first Firework Event with support of  the Late Pastor Anna Jean Atkinson which Rosenwald continued after her passing, giving honor to the support and contributions to our community by Pastor Atkinson. Rosenwald Center was instrumental in community outdoor events, i.e. parades during Covid as well as starting our Juneteenth Festival with its 6th year anniversary coming up in June 2026. JoAnn Stevens surveyed the entire West Harper Street Area to establish "The Corner" Historic District which remains proposed awaiting movement from our SHPO.  There were numerous oral histories garnered through this process. Our accomplishments and work over the past 33 years are too numerous to share in this platform.  My love for history and my community became a passion after my older daughter and I moved in to take care of our Aunt Mrs. Ella Suggs Anderson. Aunt "Babe" Ella was of the first graduating class of 1929 from the Colored High School, a Washington/Rosenwald School in Snow Hill, N.C.. Her love for history,  led to our mission. We established Spectrum for Living in 1992  with my then future husband, Willard Ray Stevens and Mr. James Williams. After Mr. Williams passed and we discovered the school was built under the Tuskegee Plan and obtained support from the Rosenwald School Fund, we reorganized as Rosenwald Center for Cultural Enrichment.   Long has been the road we trod, but faith will continue to be our guiding rod.