Abstract:
Ball State University is over a hundred years old as of the writing of this document, yet
the stories of its African American alumni, like at many other institutions of higher
learning, remains relatively untold. Unless a student is to explore the hallowed
establishments of Historically Black Colleges and Universities where the story of
minority alumni is celebrated, the African American experience attending predominantly
white, higher education institutions is largely unwritten. At Ball State University I have
had the pleasure of working on two projects that were similar yet told two different
stories of the university. One was the BSU Centennial Immersive project, which aimed to
create a series of videos dedicated to telling the history of Ball State. However, these
videos lacked one major piece of history, the distinctive experiences of minorities, and in
particular, African American students and alumni. The second project was the African
American Alumni Oral History Project-II, led by Dr. Michael Doyle. As a member of his
team, I conducted two interviews of notable African American alumni from the midtwentieth
century, Col. Aaron (“AB”) Floyd and Ms. Ella McNeary. My thesis includes
my research of my interview subjects, the transcriptions of those interviews, and the final
documentary for which I served as the primary editor.
