"He Was Like SUPERMAN" – How a Navy Vet Grandfather Built Andre Williams' Mind

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
How did you get this mindset? Who shaped your mind? You speak about your grandfather a lot.

**Andre Williams** (0:03)
I do.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
So, what are some ways he shaped your mindset?

**Andre Williams** (0:08)
We would talk every day. My father was killed a few months before I was born. Gaged to my mother and everything.
Grandfather loved him.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:16)
In Detroit?

**Andre Williams** (0:17)
In Detroit, yeah. Right down the street.
Right down the street in the same neighborhood. It's life, such is life. But I'm here.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:24)
Was he causing trouble, or he was a bystander that?

**Andre Williams** (0:27)
Good man. Was killed, murdered. And a very unfortunate situation. I'm here because of the excellence of my parents, but this unfortunate beginning, as I said, did not define me. Didn't push me in this direction to...
In the direction of being involved in crime or being involved in this instability. I had great parents. Something unfortunate happened. But we didn't sit back and cry about it. We did something and then pushed beyond this circumstance, this situation. So that happened. Father's gone. My mother, she lives right next door. Took care of my grandmother. She passed away in 2005
They were like best friends.
They loved each other. Grandfather, he was always my mother's daddy's girl.
Grandfather served 44 years in the Navy.
Joined 1960 Went into Navy medicine. PhD in anatomy and physiology. Great man, like Superman. So much of the world view, politics, philosophy, came from him. He was a big Schopenhauer fan. He was a big Jean-Jacques Rousseau fan, Nietzsche. We would talk about these things all the time. And we were known as the black Republicans in the neighborhood because we had a very conservative outlook on things. And I would say, I'm more far right. I'm more aggressive in my perspective on politics compared to where they, of course, stood.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:50)
They being your grandfather?

**Andre Williams** (1:52)
Grandfather and mother. I think I went a little bit aggressive. As I got older, we would argue a little bit like, you know, hey, I think we should go a little bit further with this. He's like, you need to calm down. Pace yourself.
I hear what you're saying. But pace yourself. I get where you're coming from. Let's slow down a little bit.
But yeah, much of my worldview.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:09)
Who influenced him?

**Andre Williams** (2:11)
Who influenced him? I would say, that's an honest question. Who influenced him? I would say he influenced himself. He came from a very poor condition.
Grew up in Culpepper, Virginia. Predicament of, you know, mother and father not in the best relationship. And married, and I think he was the one son out of what, six sisters. So a lot of kids, big family. And he left home joining AV. And made from his own self. Moved to Detroit in 1972 Married my grandmother, I think, what, 73, 74
So, and we've been in Detroit ever since. Own our own home.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:44)
Same area?

**Andre Williams** (2:45)
Same area.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:45)
You have a move?

**Andre Williams** (2:46)
Have not moved. I've moved, but family hasn't moved, no.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:48)
So the area that they grew up in, how far are you from where they were at?

**Andre Williams** (2:53)
I'm downtown. Okay, got it.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:55)
Yeah. So who would he talk to you about? You gave some of the names earlier that he would talk about. Who else would he talk about? Thomas Sowell was Thomas Sowell an influence?

**Andre Williams** (3:03)
Big Thomas Sowell. He loved Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas.
But it was more of... He was always something very interesting with him, which got me into a more far right leaning perspective. I would say we will watch Westerns. Gun smoke, half gun will travel, bonanza. We loved it. And he would say sometimes, you know, the most interesting story isn't always the good guy, it's the bad guy.
And I'm a big history fan, so I'm like, well, what do you mean by that? And then we start talking about, well, look through history. Look at all the people that they say are bad guys, that are bad people. What do you think of them? So I start going down the list. I'm like, okay, I can mention, you know, Napoleon. I can mention, you know, Stalin to a degree, Mao to a degree, Hitler, Mussolini, Francisco Franco. I can mention a lot of these people. I'm like, you know, these guys are considered the bad guys. We get told in school, these guys are the bad people. But when you examine history, it's like, well, are they?
History is written by the victor. This is something that I think is always going to exist, regardless of if these people are right or wrong.