Remembering Calvin Rand by Scott Propeack

Calvin Rand (1929-2016) was a co-founder of the Shaw Festival, and a supporter of cultural organizations through-out Western New York and beyond. As members of our community pass we look back on their accomplishments and the role that they played in the community. With Calvin his involvement was so extensive that I feel it is better to remember him by a conversation. In 2010, Calvin, Carolyn Morris-Hunt, and I had lunch in his home. His health was not great at the time and Carolynn and I wanted to bring him something to eat.

He was concerned about Buffalo because it was not the place that he remembered fondly from his youth. Sure there were things that were better, but what troubled him most – on this day – was about race relations in the city. I had a shared concern, but not being from Buffalo or having nearly the historic understanding. Calvin asked what had happened and I wasn’t quite clear on what he was thinking.

He then told me of the great club scene in Buffalo, he did not mean the Buffalo Club and Saturn Club or Marcella’s and Sportsman’s. He was specifically referring to Little Harlem, Montgomery’s and the other jazz clubs that the city previously celebrated.  All of which he noted were eastside clubs. It wasn’t the music that he was missing it was the fact that even in a racially divided city – no matter what their background – people came together somewhere.

This was not the statement of someone thinking that the city was a perfect place in an earlier day and age, but rather someone who did not see the connections that he experienced. He was not looking to move back in time he was looking for what was lost, over a time which some people felt so much had been gained. It wasn’t a rose-colored glass memory. He knew that in the past many people were free to move about the community in ways that others could not, but was looking for those places that the community still came together.

Buffalo, like most cities, has struggles that are frequently glossed over by large strokes of economic failure and success. What was interesting, was that Calvin was a person who also looked at other ways to understand the success and failure of community. So many remembrances occur when someone passes away. All of us in the cultural community will certainly think about that time, at that event, when Calvin said something funny and the times that he challenged others to step up and support all of us. I will try to think of the essential interest he had and for me that was bringing people together, people from all areas of the community. 

Scott Propeack