Charles Lampkin

Charles Lampkin was an American performer whose work spanned acting, music, and lecturing. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, he became a spoken-word performer in the 1930s and won Ohio debating cups in 1939, 1940, and 1941. He led the American Peoples' Chorus as music director from 1943 to 1945 and later composed a piano concerto in G minor. In Five (1951), Arch Oboler's science fiction film about nuclear holocaust, he persuaded Oboler to incorporate James Weldon Johnson's The Creation into the script, with the text becoming his screen soliloquy. In 1969 he began teaching music and theater arts at Santa Clara University as artist-in-residence and remained there until 1981. Lampkin received an Emmy nomination in 1979 for Home Run for Love, an ABC after-school special, and the same year he appeared as Professor Loman in Roots: The Next Generations.