Donate to our 2026 Annual Fund Today!

Cleveland Restoration Society

Lee Harvard: The Suburb in the City

This book, the first-ever published history of these neighborhoods, documents and celebrates a success story, a Cleveland case of Black community-building. The story starts just west of the intersection of Lee and Seville Roads, where a Black enclave took shape in the 1920s. By establishing a foothold in Cleveland’s far southeastern reaches, African Americans laid the successful groundwork for the vicinity to develop as a Black “suburb in the city.”

Purchase Yours Today
1959 aerial view of the Lee-Harvard neighborhood showing the rapid growth and its “suburban” design. Photo Courtesy of Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.
A brochure advertising the Seville Homes. The Seville Homes were integrated, but were primarily occupied by African Americans who came from the south and other areas in search of manufacturing jobs. Photo Courtesy of Case Western Reserve University. Kelvin Smith Library. Special Collections.
Dave Chillious and Carl Stokes at Neighborhood Meeting, 1969. Photo Courtesy of Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.
Neighborhood volunteers from the Lee-Harvard Community Association. Photo Courtesy of Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.
Langley Avenue Street Club. Active street clubs helped residents protect the high quality of life they worked so hard to achieve. Photo Courtesy of the Langley Avenue Street Club.

The Cleveland Restoration Society worked tirelessly from 2015-2019 to collect community history, interviewing and filming residents of the neighborhood and scouring archives and private collections for historical images that help tell the story of this remarkable place.