YouSaid · the spoken record

Walter Massey

lines on the record
59
first
2023-11-23
most recent
2023-11-23
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Not all of them, but many of them from big cities, Chicago, Detroit, even Atlanta. And they just done things, they're taken courses that a guy from Andover private school. And I just didn't think I could compete. And she, of course, didn't let me come home. But what happened was a major incident in my maturation. We had to take a placement exam. Every student in the freshman class, maybe 110 of us in small school. And they posted displacement exam was to see which courses you should take, you know, based on your knowledge. But they could never do this today. But then they actually post it. The results on the door, the freshman door”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Well, no, it was a well developed program, and they did it for three years, and I was in the third cohort. And each cohort, there were about 15 to 20 students. So when I arrived, there were about 15, 14 others in my group, and there were two cohorts that had already been there. So that was an atmosphere created. But it was still, we were still a small minority. And I was very concerned. In fact, the second day I was there, I called my mother and told her I wanted to come home because all of these guys”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “No, no, no, only four historically black colleges in this program. There were about 20 colleges around the country, mostly”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I did, and that was not something planned. My mother was taken courses to finish her degree at Jackson State then. And she was asked to drive the students who had been picked to go take this test. It was a nationwide test. Ford Foundation sponsored it. And so I went along with the group.”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Raise me. And he went, then he got drafted into the army. That was my biological father. And they were friends more than lovers. It just got happened to get pregnant is what she tells me. And they remained friends throughout life. But he moved to Detroit and got remarried to my stepmother. And she Mr. Massey, who became my father when I was like two, and he's the one who raised me.”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And so we had a lot of Lyles, L-Y-L-E-S. And so his children and my grandmother was his second oldest child. And they lived in Mississippi. And she was, when I grew up, she was a domestic. Her husband worked for Mississippi Southern College. Both of my grandfathers did, my mother and father's side, which is now Southern Mississippi University. He worked as a cook on the campus, which was not too far from us. And my paternal grandfather worked there as a handy person or janitor. So they both worked for this college. And my mother went to Alcorn College for the historical bike college. And she became pregnant with me in her freshman year with my father, who was also an Altorn College. And she quits.”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “The furthest go back on my mother's side. I can't go back far enough. That fog or my biological father's side. Well, my biological father, yes. On my mother's side, Esseck Lyles was the sort of a patriarch back, and he was the son of a black woman who just came out of slavery and a white northern army. We have records of that And he had 27 chosen. Oh my God. For the seven by five wives in his 80s, by his youngest wife. And we've had somebody in the family who's really documented all.”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, I was about to say, actually, I had a fairly happy childhood. I'm very happy when I looked back. You're a youngster, you don't see the world a lot, you see your closest surroundings. And we had a vibrant black community, and maybe part of it was because of the segregation. So there were black businesses in the community. My mother was an elementary school teacher and became an elementary school principal, and my father worked for a company called Hercules Powder Company, which has a fascinating history. But it was spun off by DuPont. It was forced to spin it off. I've learned all this later. But it was a very enlightened company. They had a co-op you could shop in. So my whole world, you know, looking back, was happy within those constraints. So I don't recall being traumatized by my surroundings.”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Well, I was born and had his great Mississippi in 1938, so I really grew up in the 40s and 50s when it was probably the height or the depth. I'm not sure which of this total segregation. Jim Crow, apartheid, like almost. So the things that You probably read about it, others have read about water fountains colored and white not being able to go in the front door of stores, even if you could go in at all, the kind of constant concern about whether or not you might do something which would cause the ire of the white community or white individuals to turn on you. So that was the old atmosphere. We went to segregated public schools. Everything was segregated.”

    2023-11-23 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 558 — Walter Massey · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source