Tales told out of school : Ball State University African American Alumni Oral History Project II

Abstract

In the 1920s and 30s, sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd conducted a study on a municipality they thought most represented the average American small city. The site they chose was Muncie, Indiana, and the study resulted in the books Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture and Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts. Despite its prominence in the community, the Lynds ignored the African American population of the city. Decades later, when the history of Ball State University was written by Dr. Anthony O. Edmonds and Dr. E. Bruce Geelhoed, there was very little historical data regarding the African American student body or local community. Therefore, there was very little material in the book presenting this perspective of history. The Ball State University African American Alumni Oral History Project has sought out to change this through interviews with former students from both the Muncie community and across the country, and making these interviews available to the public through the Ball State University Libraries' Digital Media Repository. In doing so, we hope that their stories will be considered when future students and researchers study the history of Ball State, Muncie, or college student life of previous decades in general. These interviews can be found at http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/search/collection/BSUAAAlmOrH.