CHARLES EVERETT PACE was born in Texarkana, Texas on February 5, 1946. He was the second son born to Otha Faye Spence and Jesse Lee Finis Pace. He grew up under the dictates of Jim Crow laws, which were designed to exclude African Americans from achieving the American dream and voting rights. He graduated as salutatorian from Dunbar High School in 1964, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Bill being passed into law as America marched into the Vietnam War. His childhood memories recall him as "young, naïve, protected, relatively privileged and blessed, all through no work of my own." Charles was a very spiritual person who knew the Bible well. He grew up in Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church. Upon graduation, he went to Texarkana College, where he received an Associate of Arts degree. In 1967 he went to the University of Texas at Austin to continue his education; however, he was drafted into the Army, which paused his educational pursuits.
During his stint in the Army, this naïve boy became a man. His mind became preoccupied with the job of being a combat medic. The lessons he learned to survive awakened his natural creative ability. When he returned to the University, after three years in the Army, he was ready to step into the next phase of his life. He received a B.S. Degree in Biology at UT Austin where he established the popular 'Soul Night' as the Black program director for the Texas Union.
Charles co-founded the Afro-American Players which was formed from a class project to dramatize the book, Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown. He was transformed in the Players to become a revolutionary scholar with a theatrical format to portray African American history and heroes. He created a successful one-man show on Malcolm X which led him to create a show on the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The arts were the platform he used in his passion for knowledge, truth, history, sciences, and the humanities. This creative passion was the inspiration for him to develop the Chautauqua scholar's program with one of the original founders, George Frein. He was part of the inception and continuing development of this community of artists/scholars in which he became a renowned performer himself, exploring 190 years of American history. He has performed on stages around America and the world as Artist Ambassador for the State Department.
Mentored by Dr. Geneva Gaye, Charles received a master's degree from Purdue University where he pursued his Ph. D on the Anthropology of Performance. He was a professor in Cultural Anthropology and African American culture and history at Purdue University and, Centre College in Danville, KY. He was an avid reader with a brilliant mind. His home was a library and he used it as a sanctuary of knowledge, where he taught online college classes. He said... "Books are connected by multiple pathways going in different directions to symbolize the different approaches we can take to reach success, but also needing to discern the right one without fear of intimidation... Bury me with a book." In addition to his love for books, Charles walked, listened to jazz, played his saxophone, and practiced Yoga every day.
Charles is survived by his wife, Yolantha Harrison Pace, his daughters Diamond Pace and Erin Pace, his brother Bobby Lamar Pace, Sr., his sister-in-law, Dorothy King Pace, his nephew Bobby Lamar Pace, Jr. (Rechelle), his great nephew Justin Nicholas Pace, his aunt, Nettie Mae Lee, best friends Phyllis Lynch Pope, Freddie and GloDean Gardner and a host of cousins.