Great Things Happening in Muncie’s Black Community

Back in the 1970s, Margot Middleton was a newscaster in Muncie for WLBC (now Woof Boom Radio), where she did a show on community awareness that highlighted various happenings in the black community.

“There are not a lot of black people in Muncie, but those who are here – it’s a great force,” says Middleton, whose grandfather carved shoes to escape slavery. He came through the south and ended up in the Levi Coffin House in Fountain City, Indiana, where he helped get slaves through the Underground Railroad.

Middleton, who during her career also worked as an account representative for General Motors and a student coordinator for Ivy Tech, sees progress being made in the Muncie community as black people educate and communicate with one another to ensure that all are exposed to information and crossing cultural lines. The black community understands that there is power in sharing.

“To be candid, there’s a lot of subliminal and intellectual ugliness that still occurs,” Middleton says. “But history has taught us that when you hear the dogs barking, keep moving. That’s what I see happening.”

She’s optimistic about what is happening in Muncie for youths, adults and the elderly. For instance, organizations like the Muncie-Delaware Black Chamber, Juneteenth celebration and NAACP are cultivating young entrepreneurs.

“I’ve seen children as young as junior high design creative products,” Middleton says. “Young people are becoming interested in business because these organizations and others are exposing them to opportunities.”

One such example is taking the youth on field trips to historically black colleges to give them an idea of what they can experience on that level.

In addition, churches in Muncie such as Union Missionary Baptist are partnering with various resources throughout the city to show those – especially those in the Whitely area – how to buy their own homes and build credit.

Margot Middleton

“When you connect with people who look like you and understand some of the pitfalls you’ve been through, it’s easier to talk to them and trust them,” Middleton says. “That’s just human nature.”

This is precisely why more black people are going to doctors and psychiatrists, because Muncie now has people of color filling both of those roles. This is a huge breakthrough, especially in the field of mental health, as Middleton notes that historically, black people haven’t felt safe in seeking help for mental health issues.

“Black people never believed in talking to psychologists or psychiatrists,” she says. “They just held onto it. Now with black mental health practitioners in the community, they are.”

For years Middleton served on the board of Jackson Life Services, Inc. (JLS), which seeks to provide life services that educate, enrich and empower the local, national and international communities with a heavy focus on the Whitely community.

“JLS does tremendous work with elderly support, counseling and community development,” Middleton says. “It’s a silent arm in the community that you don’t really hear a lot about, but it’s exciting.”

As for education, at Muncie’s Longfellow Elementary School, they have a program for first- through fifth-graders called Literacy for Liberation. The students at Longfellow are predominantly people of color. These students are exposed to books that have been created by people of the black community, and activities that represent them.

There is also the Whitely Institute on Community Engaged Teacher Prep designed for students at Ball State University. Those who plan to do their internship teaching at Longfellow Elementary are encouraged to participate in this program that’s held across 10 Saturdays, during which they learn how to better communicate with their students. The institute is not connected with Ball State University. It was created by a group of community leaders who wanted to better prepare college students for how to engage with students in black communities.

“It’s a great model,” Middleton says. “It’s the idea of, if you’re going to come into our community, you need to know something about our community. We know some people are trying to eliminate a lot of history, but student-teachers need to know about history so they know how to talk and communicate with the children.”

February may be the month that we celebrate black history, but make no mistake that black history is being made every day.

Comments 2

  1. Yvonne Thompson says:

    This lady right here knows how Muncie works. Ms. Margot Middleton is an icon and an example of wisdom plus knowledge for us all.

  2. M. Eileen Baker-Wall says:

    Our Black heritage is beautiful! William Bush is Margot’s thrice great gandfather and my great, great grandfather. We jointly enjoy sharing our roots. We also like finding tidbits of information about Bush, working in Newport (renamed Fountain City in 1878) with Levi Coffin, to help Freedom Seekers gain their manumission. Hopefully, what happened during slavery in the United States of Americs will not ever happen again to a particular race of people, because of their skin color!!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Muncie Stories

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Send me your media kit!

hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "6486003", formId: "5ee2abaf-81d9-48a9-a10d-de06becaa6db" });