MySQL not allowing text columns?

Question

I'm using MySQL 5.5.27. I currently have a BLOB column, that I want to convert to text to allow fulltext searching. The ALTER TABLE command to create a text column is successful, but the ALTER TABLE table ADD FULLTEXT INDEX index (column ASC) to create a fulltext index returns an error, saying I cannot create a fulltext index on that column.

When I go back and look at the specs for the table, it appears as BLOB, instead of text.

I'm using MySQLWorkbench, but I've generally been running the scripts by hand, instead of using the wizard.

I have tried setting a character encoding for the entire schema (none existed before) thinking that this would be needed for text columns, but it didn't help.