Email us on info@iaagg.org
Charles E. Vaughn BIO
December 14, 2020
Once upon a time, a little boy was born on February 17, 1953 at Barnes Hospital in the city of St. Louis, MO. Charles Edward Vaughn was born to Carvis Vaughn, Sr and Ethel Lee Vaughn. He was a middle child and had one older brother, Carvis, Jr. and one younger brother, Melvin.
In the early 1950’s Charles and his family members lived at 721 North Whittier St. in a predominantly Black neighborhood on the east side of town. In 1959, he and his family moved to 5361 Cote Brilliante St. on the west side of town. In the early 1960’s, Cote Brilliante was considered a predominantly white neighborhood. Shortly afterwards it became a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Charles received his primary education from the St. Louis Public School system. He attended Field Branch, Arlington, Gundlach, Humboldt (which he was bused to), and graduated from Gundlach in 1967. The St. Louis Public School classrooms (similar to many large metropolitan schools), wrestled with desegregation, in which African-American students from the city and white students from the county schools were swapped to achieve greater racial balance. In 1963 while in the 5th grade Charles was bused to an all-white school (Humboldt). Busing was used as an integration tool to achieve racial balance. Busing was supported by some Black leaders like activist Jesse Jackson, NAACP officials and U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm. It was during 1963 that Charles honed in his keen sense for math and the sciences. As a matter of fact, when he returned to Gundlach in 1964, he found that math and science concepts were easier for him to understand.
Charles graduated from Soldan High School in 1971, which was a predominantly black high school. He graduated 5th in his class, with a 3.78 gpa, was a member of the National Honor Society, and was the recipient of the school’s math award. He received 5 full scholarships but elected to attend Washington University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Washington University was primarily a Jesuit school and was only 3% black. Jesuit colleges typically stress ethics, leadership and community services. In 1976, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering specializing in permissive interlocks and power generation.
After graduation, Charles accepted a position at the Kellogg Company as an Associate Project Engineer. While at Kellogg’s, Charles was offered leadership roles within the engineering, marketing, manufacturing, logistics, quality, and procurement areas.
In 1978, Charles married his college sweetheart, who also graduated from Washington University, Kennethe (Green) Vaughn. They were married in Battle Creek, MI. They have 2 kids, Jonathan Charles Vaughn and Kai Alisha Vaughn. Jonathan and Kai (along with their spouses) have provided Kennethe and Charles with 5 grandkids.
In 2003, Charles and his family moved to Indianapolis where he accepted a position as the General Manager of the Weyerhaeuser Corrugated Box plant. Charles commented to his family that this position was one of the best positions that he had ever filled. He loved that in addition to being responsible for operations, logistics, quality, safety and human resources; he was also held responsible for increasing sales for the organization.
Charles recently retired and in 2020 was appointed the Vice President of the Indiana African American Genealogy Group (IAAGG) and also accepted the role as Chairperson of the 2020 Annual Conference.
I would be remis if I didn’t say something about the global pandemic that we are experiencing this year. 2020 was a scary year for all Americans and for all people across the globe! A global pandemic called the Coronavirus (Covid-19) hit the United States in the spring of 2020. It was a contagious and deadly virus that spread fast. Black and brown people were effected disproportionately with Covid-19 with a high number of deaths across the country. As of this writing in mid-December 2020, I know of one person on my maternal side and one person on my paternal side that had contracted this virus. I am happy to report that both of them have recovered and are doing well!
Through-out this pandemic, people were asked to stay home and asked not to leave their homes unless it was absolutely necessary. Everyone was asked to wear masks, wash their hands for 20 seconds after touching almost anything, and were asked to “socially distance themselves (by over 6 feet) from each other”.
For the most part, airplanes were grounded, travel was banned, borders were closed across air, sea and land.
The economy which had been spiraling upward, all of a sudden halted. The country experienced a 14.7% unemployment rate in 2020 which equated to 23.1 million people unemployed. And once again, unemployment rates among black and brown people were effected disproportionately. In April, 16.7% of black workers were unemployed, 18.9% hispannic workers were unemployed and 14.2% white workers were unemployed.
For those that were employed, they were split into “essential” and “non-essential” workers. The essential healthcare and frontline workers were asked to maintain their employment for the betterment of others. Non-essential workers were laid off or furloughed. Even though the essential workers were able to maintain their jobs, their work in essence put them at risk of catching the virus. Essential workers were folks like, doctors, nurses, postal workers, trash collectors and grocery store clerks, just to name a few. Businesses that were challenged financially before the pandemic or businesses that were tagged as a non-essential business, were closing. Businesses like restaurants, fitness centers, and bars were losing customers and consequently were shutting down or saw their profits cut in half or worse. The unemployment rate (at one point) reached over 14% with over 14 million people falling into the unemployed status!
There was a wave of coronavirus cases in the spring. But a second wave came in November. We were approaching 200,000 Covid-19 infections per day which was an increase over the 50,000 cases per day we saw earlier this summer. We had over 107,000 hospitalization cases and many of our hospitals and medical staff were overwhelmed.
By late November, there were over 16.0 million Covid-19 cases across the United States and on December 14th, we reached 300,000 deaths with a projection of 500,000 deaths by April 1, 2021!
People were looking for hope. Finally, on December 11 a coronavirus vaccine was produced by a company named Pfizer in Kalamazoo, MI. Pfizer’s vaccine was approved and was given the ok to move forward. Some Americans will begin to get access to these vaccines as early as Monday, December 14th or Tuesday, December 15th. The biggest concern by everyone was “trust’ of this vaccine. Questions were rising as to whether the vaccine was being shaped by politicians or was it being rushed to “get it out there as soon as possible without proper testing?” Again there was a high level of distrust regarding the vaccine among black and brown people due to past history of the Tuskegee experiment and the ways that African American slaves were treated under Jim Crow laws. As I write this note, Covid-19 vaccines are being packed and loaded on trucks for distribution across all 50 states. The first batches are promised to our health care workers and senior citizen candidates. Health experts are warning that it is likely that the US won’t see any meaningful, widespread impacts from vaccinations until well into 2021.
