Cleveland Siddha Webber Jr. ’73

Cleveland Siddha Webber Jr. ’73 died on August 15, 2016. He was a lifelong resident of Chicago. Siddha came to Dartmouth as a transfer student from Kentucky State University. At Dartmouth he majored in government and participated in the A Better Chance program that provided mentoring and tutoring for disadvantaged youth with potential to attend college. After graduation Siddha returned to Chicago, where he developed his talent and gained renown as an outdoor urban mural painter, poet, musician, art teacher, life coach and community activist. During his career Siddha painted 57 public art murals in Chicago, many of which expressed themes of hope, pain, love, injustice, spirituality, black pride, music, poetry, urban crime, civil rights, community spirit and urban black culture. For many years during the summer Siddha organized the Universal Alley Jazz Jam in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. An ordained minister, he earned both his master of divinity degree and his doctor of ministry degree from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. Siddha was also a doctor of naprapathy and maintained a naturopathic, alternative medicine practice in Chicago. He was an alumni interviewer. Siddha is survived by his wife, Sarah, and daughter Oafrikara.