MASSEY, Floyd, Jr. 1915-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 25, in 1915, in Rock Hill, SC; died October 28, 2003, in Los Angeles, CA. Pastor and author. Massey was a Baptist minister and civil rights leader who led congregations in St. Paul and Los Angeles. After completing undergraduate work at Johnson C. Smith University in 1936, he worked a summer as a janitor for a white church because he could earn more money doing that than he could teaching. He did, however, go into education when he became a history, sociology, and economics teacher for a high school in Columbia, South Carolina, from 1936 until 1941. Completing a bachelor's degree in divinity at Colgate Rochester Divinity School in 1944, Massey next accepted a position as pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he would remain for the next twenty years. While there, Massey increased the size of his congregation almost tenfold and became active in local political issues. For example, he led a fight to force the construction of Interstate Highway 94 to be built below ground level to decrease noise, and he fought for the passage of a city ordinance to require landlords and real estate owners to rent or sell homes and apartments to people regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin. In 1965, Massey moved to the West Coast to become pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church in Los Angeles, where he remained until his 1988 retirement. During this time, he earned his M.Div. from the Colgate Rochester Divinity School in 1972, and a D.Min. from the Colgate Rochester/Besley Hall/Crozer Seminary in 1975. Massey was active in the NAACP and several church organizations; he was a board member of the American Baptist Convention's Foreign Missions Society, vice president of the American Baptist Church from 1974 to 1975, and president of the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest, among other activities. Among his civic activities, he was a former vice chair of the Minnesota governor's Commission on Human Rights, the St. Paul Urban League Board, and, from 1955 to 1965, a member of the St. Paul Planning Board. Also active with the Martin Luther King International Board of Preachers of Morehouse College, Massey was known for being active in both predominantly black and white organizations and for his ability to bring these two sides together. He was the author, with Samuel McKinney, of the book Church Administration in Black Perspective (1976).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, November 5, 2003, Section 1, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2003, p. B9.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), November 6, 2003, p. B6.

ONLINE

TwinCities.com,http://www.twincities.com/ (November 6, 2003).