Black Muncie History Project records

The idea for the Black Muncie History Project was conceived by Hurley Goodall, who wanted the story of black Muncie to be told so that blacks could have information about their heritage, and also for the sake of making the white population aware of the black culture. Goodall, one of the first two blacks hired by the Muncie Fire Department and the first black to be elected to the Muncie Community School Board, had earned the right to be heard by the people of Muncie. He made his request for a grant to the Muncie Human Rights Commission in February of 1971 and his request was granted in July 1971.

Goodall approached the Ball State University Department of History for help in working on this project. The head of that department talked to Dr. J. Paul Mitchell who was then teaching courses in black history. Mitchell agreed to work with Goodall on the project, and the two of them, without much information about how to do oral histories, began interviewing the older individuals within the Muncie black community. There was a sense of urgency with which this project was begun because of a concern that many of these older individuals were dying. It appears as though this concern was valid since, by 1976, more than one quarter of the people who were interviewed had died.

In addition to interviews conducted by Goodall and Mitchell, a few graduate students in the Department of History also interviewed some of these older people. In an effort to further help with the project, the Department of History provided Mitchell with a student secretary for the typing of transcripts of the taped interviews. As the culmination of this research project, Mitchell and Goodall published “A History of Negroes in Muncie” in 1976.