Tue Feb 09 2021

Joyce is a game changer. Roy called in at the beginning of this episode to suggest we ask his mom about her activism in the Civil Rights Movement, and we’re grateful Joyce was willing to share. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Joyce went on to Delta State University where she was one of the first Black students to integrate the school. Her enrollment exposed her to innumerable tribulations due to the racism of teachers, students, the entire academic system and society at large. She didn’t succumb to racism and instead fought for her human rights by participating in sit-ins, protesting her grades from discriminatory professors and merely by using the bathrooms in her dorm. Despite these negative forces Joyce still went onto grad school and law school, and continues her remarkable work in the world of academia as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at a college in Birmingham, Alabama. She told us that Roy was a quiet child which worked quite nicely considering he was a toddler when sh...