Coming to Ball State in 1972, Charles Payne was a sight for students and faculty to see. Sporting leisure suits and an afro, Payne was hired to develop Ball State's multicultural program, and he was one of just a few African-Americans on campus.
"I was one of the first African-American professors here and a lot of the black students didn't know exactly what to make of me," he said. "Most of them were from Indiana and they had gone to schools where they had all white teachers and they had really never had a black teacher before."
The white students also didn't know what to think.
"I think a lot of the white students saw me as a novelty," he said. "Many of them had never interacted with a black person or talked to a black person."
Muncie in 1972
Payne dealt with race barriers when he moved to Muncie.
He and his wife saw an advertisement for apartments in the newspaper and that day they went to look.
"[The owner] talked to us through the screen and never unlocked the door so we could come in," he said. "We told her we were interested in the apartment, and she said all of them had been rented."
This was a lie, one of many told to Payne in those first years.
When they got an apartment, he found out his family were paying more than other residents.
"I asked the owner, ‘I'm paying a little bit more than the rest of the people.' He said, ‘If you don't like it, you can just move out.'"
Payne warned that he would get the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People involved, and the owner quickly said he would allow Payne to pay what everyone else did.
Danger
"I would occasionally get threatening phone calls from I assume Klan members," he said. "And during the early part of school desegregation, people did get killed."
Payne had a frightening experience when he took a group of female white students to visit a black school in Gary in the mid-1980s. They stopped at a gas station, and a sheriff's car was parked there.
"All kinds of cursing started from the car, so you learn to ignore that," he said. "I never turned around to look. I just pretended like I didn't hear it, because if I turned around and looked or made eye contact, then we had to confront."
He told one of the women to get the others and get back in the car.
"She never really understood what I said, but she could see the fear in my face that something was wrong," he said.
Fitting the norm
When he came to Ball State, his appearance was very different to some people.
"I wore leisure suits, I had a big afro, my chops and goatee, that frightened a lot of people," he said. "People weren't really sure if I was a college professor or a black panther."
He was the only one who dressed this way. Everyone else wore white shirts and neckties.
"I made a conscious decision if I'm going to work at Ball State I'm going to fit the norm, so I got my afro cut off, shaved and started wearing white shirts and neckties," he said. "Sure enough as I made that change, attitudes and perceptions of me changed."
Building a program
Payne was hired to develop the multicultural program at Ball State.
"I was told that when I came, starting a multicultural program at Ball State would be almost impossible because at the time we didn't get a lot of students from Gary, urban areas, Indianapolis," he said. "A lot of students came from Wawasee, Ligonier ... places like that."
Today, the multicultural education has changed.
"I think the overall attitude of students, the emphasis on trying to hire more minority faculty members, changing the curriculum for more diversity," he said. "There are pockets of racism, but as a community I think it is open."
Heroes and heritage
"Jackie Robinson is probably my hero," he said. "I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Muhammad Ali. I've always respected people who were intellectuals, who were scholars, who were brave people."
Black History Month is an important part of African-American heritage, he said.
"Not only for white people, but maybe more important for African-Americans to be able to look back at what members of African-American culture have accomplished," he said. "I consistently show my children African-Americans who are making great contributions."
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