Although he has had 33 years in the corporate sector, Carl A. Blunt will talk about his expertise in another field, the Civil Rights movement, tonight in Walter Hall.
Blunt will present his speech, A Historical Review of the Civil Rights Movement: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going? for Black History Month.
Blunt retired in April 2005 from Bank of America as the senior vice president of mortgage lending for the Southwest Region and recently earned his doctoral degree in history.
The Post's Anna Sudar spoke to Blunt about his career with Bank of America, his interest in civil rights and growing up in the '60s.
The Post: What brought you to Ohio University?
Carl A. Blunt: One of my fraternity brothers, Christopher Martin, is on the faculty at OU and he assisted me in getting Omega Psi Phi museum started. As far as I know, we are the only Greek organization that has 3,000 square feet of museum space dedicated to our own alumni.
Post: How did you get interested in studying the Civil Rights Movement?
Blunt: Really it was secondary. ... I primarily focused on the WWI, WWII era and how ... the black soldiers got treated badly in the military then they came back into the real world and they were treated even worse. ... That's what got me interested in it.
Post: With a background in history, what led you to work in the corporate sector?
Blunt: ... When I got out of undergrad school I went straight into graduate school and studied education. ... I started at the bank in 1976; there were a lot of refugees coming out of the Vietnam War and they could not communicate very well as customers. I would draw and make notebooks and show them how to do their banking. ... Eventually ,they moved me to the training department and from the training department I went to the mortgage department. ... Those were skills I learned in school teaching kids about history ... kind of just matriculated into mortgage sales.
Post: Why should students come to your presentation tonight and hear you speak?
Blunt: There's an old African saying ... If you don't know where you've been
you don't know where you're going. I grew up during the '60s in San Francisco, so ... I was not exposed to a lot of segregation or overt racism but when I would go down South, I would see things and hear about things I just couldn't believe. ... I figure if I can tell some of these students how it was for me and how it is historically, they will appreciate what they have.
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