Samuel P. Massie

Massie was born on July 3, 1919, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was the eldest of two sons of Earlee Jacko Massie and Samuel Proctor Massie Sr. His parents were members of a college fraternity and sorority, and both were educators. Massie Sr was a pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), and a civil rights activist.) Instead, he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry in 1937 at the age of 18, from the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (Arkansas AM&N, now called University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff). In the second year of his doctoral studies in 1943, his father died from an asthma attack. == Career ==

After his PhD and teaching for a time at Fisk University, Massie joined the faculty of Langston University in Oklahoma, where he taught from 1947 to 1953. a classic in the field from which anti-psychotic medications were developed. Chemical Reviews had more than 500 requests for copies of the paper, from 50 countries. In 1960, Massie moved to Washington, D.C., taking on the role of Associate Program Director for Special Projects in Science Education at the National Science Foundation (NSF), helping improve college laboratories nationwide. ==Honors==

In 1994, the US Department of Energy created the Dr. Samuel P. Massie Chair of Excellence, a $14.7 million grant to nine historically black colleges and one for Hispanic students to further environmental research. An elementary school in Prince George's County, Maryland, is named in Massie's honor. == Personal life ==

In 1947, Massie married Gloria Bell Thompkins, who he met after the World War II when he was teaching at Fisk University. Gloria Massie was a psychology professor at Bowie State University, and was a social columnist for Jet magazine. The Massies had three sons. ==References==