Submitted by Kenny L. Brown,
University of Central Oklahoma
Professor Charles Edward Roberts, one among many influential Choctaw historians, passed away on November 15, 2025. At California State University, Sacramento, where he began teaching in 1970, he created some of the first classes on American Indian History in the nation and helped in the formation of the ethnic studies program there.
He was born in 1941 near Bennington, Okla., at the home of his maternal grandmother, Lesa Phillip Roberts, a Mississippi Choctaw who had taken her allotment in 1903.
In 1944, Charles and his mother Pearl joined Lesa and many of their extended family in a move to Richmond, Calif., to work in the Kaiser shipyards. After WWII, they moved to Chowchilla, Calif., where his mother passed in 1948.
In 1962, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Fresno State University and then joined the army, serving in Stuttgart, Germany, until his discharge in 1965.
He then took a master’s degree and began work on a Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. In 1970, he gained a position at Sacramento State while continuing to work toward a Ph.D. at Oregon, which he completed in 1975.
During his career at Sacramento State, Professor Roberts became a favorite in the classroom and organized numerous symposia at the university on Native American History and Literature. He also successfully lobbied the university’s library to increase its collection of books in the field and government documents pertaining to American Indians.
As a diligent reader, Charles excelled in historiography—the study of the changing interpretation of historians. His grasp of historical literature impressed students and history colleagues alike.
In 1980, he co-authored The Choctaws: A Critical Bibliography with Clara Sue Kidwell.
Over the years, he published articles and presented papers centered on his family background that combined genealogy with ethnohistory, including a touching biography of his beloved grandmother, Lesa.
Though busy with academics, when he was in his 30s and 40s, Charles also continued the Choctaw athletic tradition by playing baseball and basketball for the Sacramento Indian Center and competing against other Indian teams in northern California. He also coached youth baseball and soccer.
Honoring Charles’s retirement in 2009, Sacramento State held a prestigious two-day symposium on the history of Native Americans, California Indians, and Choctaws, which included many of the nation’s leading Indian historians. In retirement, he continued to advocate for the preservation of American Indian studies. Also, from 2009 to 2011, he provided instruction to K through 12 teachers on the history of Native Americans and California Indians.
Charles was preceded in death by his grandmother, Lesa; his mother, Pearl; his brother, Randall Collum; and his wife, Elizabeth Jane. He is survived by sons Christopher (Heather) and Matthew (Laura), grandchildren Gavin, Clark, Madelyn, Leighton, and partner Stella Mancillas.