By SHANE BLATT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Roy Martinez didn’t have it easy growing up in Dangriga, Belize, a tiny village on the Caribbean coast.

He was dirt poor, and his mother died when he was an infant.

But the Central American community placed a strong emphasis on education. So at age 14, with money he had borrowed, young Martinez left Belize to study at a seminary in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

From those humble beginnings, Mr. Martinez would learn to speak three languages and read an additional four; earn three degrees, including a doctorate; and become a philosophy professor at Spelman College, writing numerous academic articles and three books.

“He really very much created his own blueprint and navigated his world,” son Keith Martinez said.

Roy Paul Martinez, 62, of Atlanta died July 24 at home after a three-year battle with cancer. A memorial service is tentatively planned for Sept. 24 at Spelman College, which is handling arrangements.

Born in Belize in 1947, Dr. Martinez was a product of the Garifuna culture, an ethnic group of mixed ancestry living in countries such as Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

When young Martinez arrived at the seminary, he intended to enter the priesthood, his son said. At a certain point his father realized the priesthood might not have been the right fit but that “philosophy was a close proxy to religion,” he said.

“His initial path toward religion kind of grew into philosophy,” Keith Martinez said. “Maybe he felt there was more intellectual freedom.”

And Dr. Martinez was an intellectual, through and through. He spoke Garifuna, English and French. He read Danish, German, Greek and Latin. And after earning philosophy degrees in Montreal, culminating with a doctorate at the Université de Montréal in 1986, he joined the Spelman College faculty in 1987.

As a professor and once chairman of Spelman’s philosophy department, Dr. Martinez was passionate about writing, teaching and mentoring, colleagues said.

Dr. Gertrude James Gonzalez de Allen, who currently heads the department, remembers Dr. Martinez for the way he challenged students’ assumptions.

“He didn’t get angry about their assumptions,” she said, “... but he would push them to sort of think differently on their positions on anything, whether it’s abortion or other controversial issues.”

Mostly, though, she remembers her colleague’s knack for mentoring.

One of Dr. Martinez’s goals was to boost the number of black women in philosophy. And he succeeded, she said. Of the 30 black women with doctorates in philosophy nationwide, Spelman has produced nearly one-third, she noted.

But he wasn’t just a mentor to students. “He was a mentor to me, too,” Dr. Gonzalez de Allen said. He advised her on getting published, navigating the tenure process and handling academic life. In addition, she said, he offered personal advice after she gave birth to a premature child last year.

“He would just call me and give me advice and tell me to hang on and hold on,” she said.

Keith Martinez said his father was teaching up until May. He said he admired not only his father’s self-determination, but his sense of humility and kindness.

“All he really wanted was to grow intellectually,” he said. “He was a humble, friendly, down-to-earth person.”

Additional survivors include his wife, Sandra Vaillancourt of Montreal.