Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays
reflection by Aaron Mitchell
Growing up, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to history. I’m not even sure I was awake during any history class in High School or college. I was also raised in a small, predominantly white town in east Tennessee, so regardless of how well that particular football coach taught the Civil Rights Movement, it should come as no surprise that I had never heard of Reverend Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays prior to writing this profile. I have changed my tune about history though, so I’m trying to catch up. I’ve bought into the importance of learning from the past, both the qualities that defined extraordinary leadership and the mistakes. Once I started researching Dr. Mays though, I was a little overwhelmed about writing a short profile. How do you summarize his impact in a few key points? His life deserves entire books. Regardless, different aspects of someone’s life connect with each of us in different ways, so I’ll highlight some of the key events, accomplishments, and insights that I believe are significant.
Considering the most well-known leaders from history, it seems they are generally well-known for a reason. Typically, they had a unique vision, a skillset that far surpassed their peers, and though flawed, were able to overcome a variety of obstacles and/or extreme hardships. However, the teachers and mentors of these great leaders are often forgotten and underrated. These are the people who saw the potential and provided the foundation. They are the ones who lit the initial sparks, helped them realize and even develop their purpose, and encouraged them through difficult times when they may have wanted to give up – the leader behind the leader. So, when I read that Dr. Mays was described as a “spiritual mentor” and “intellectual father” to Martin Luther King Jr., I knew this was someone worth listening to.
Benjamin Elijah Mays was the youngest of eight children, born in rural South Carolina in 1894 to two former slaves. His worldview was shaped in the heart of the Jim Crow South, shortly after Reconstruction, a world characterized by widespread poverty, racism, and violence. One of his earliest childhood memories was of an armed white mob coming to his home during an 1898 riot and forcing his father to bow before them at gunpoint. Despite the obstacles, including a father who saw no value in education beyond the third grade, Mays believed education was a means to escape the violence, discrimination, and poverty that plagued his rural southern community, and he passionately pursued it. His education started humbly. He traveled seven miles roundtrip each day to attend a one-room schoolhouse, and at age 15, he started attending a small Baptist Association School 24 miles away. After graduating high school valedictorian, he briefly attended Virginia Union University and then transferred to Bates College in Maine, where he earned his BA in 1920 and was ordained a Baptist minister the following year. Later, he entered the University of Chicago, where he earned his MA and PhD.
Much of his drive may have originally been an internal need to prove he belonged and outperform his fellow white students, especially when he was young. But he seemed to be motivated by something more substantial as he matured–something more outwardly focused than collecting degrees. He is quoted as saying, “Bates College did not emancipate me…it did far greater service of making it possible for me to emancipate myself and to accept with dignity my own worth as a free man.”[1] The choices he made in his career expanded beyond his personal emancipation and seemed oriented around instilling these ideas to others. He never stopped pursuing greater wisdom in himself though. While dean of Howard University’s School of Religion, at the urging of Reverend Howard Washington Thurman, he traveled to India in 1936 to meet Mahatma Gandhi.[2] He spoke at length with Gandhi about the principles of nonviolence, echoing the gospel of love that Mays considered Christianity’s only constant, which was instrumental in shaping his civil rights ideology.[3] Then, in 1940, Mays was elected president of Morehouse College, which would lead to the impact he is most famously known for.
Under his leadership, Morehouse College became one of the most respected historically Black colleges in the nation; academically serious, morally grounded, and leadership focused.[4] All his experiences, challenges and accomplishments culminated in the vision he lived out as president of Morehouse College. Since it was a small college, Mays was able to mentor and teach many of the students directly, including several future Civil Rights activists. In 1944, a young student named Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived at Morehouse College. He also had a hunger to learn and understood that Mays had wisdom to impart. The college held weekly chapel services, which were delivered by Mays, and King would frequently follow Mays to his office after these sessions to discuss theology and current events.[5] Mays remained a mentor and friend to King the rest of his life, and he was an important influence until his death. For example, when police indicted over 80 boycott leaders to stop the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, King wanted to remain involved in the protest against his father’s wishes. The senior King assembled friends and acquaintances to try and talk him out of continuing to lead the boycott, but Mays defended his position to remain involved.[6]
The story of Rev. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays demonstrates the results of hard work, a hunger to grow and learn, and a desire to serve, and in other ways, his life seems to have been shaped and prepared by an unseen hand from the beginning, like chess pieces being strategically placed in front of him. His experiences dealing with segregation and violence, the teachers and mentors who inspired him, and his drive to learn and mentor others all played an essential role in the impact he had on others. Whether it was a teacher at a rural one-room schoolhouse or Gandhi, they were all essential to making him who he was, and ultimately, this changed the world. His story demonstrates the importance of good teachers and mentors, and it shows that the knowledge we gain must be used to take action. Mays said, “The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.”[7] This wisdom should then be applied to one of his core messages, the pursuit of justice and equality through the means of peaceful resistance, which is needed now as much as ever, but we must also follow the lead of people like Mays and King and understand that it is not a passive resistance.
[1] https://www.bates.edu/news/2019/06/14/what-emancipation-meant-to-benjamin-mays-and-what-it-means-now/
[2] https://jacksonadvocateonline.com/thurman-and-mays-two-black-men-who-came-face-to-face-with-mahatma-gandhi/
[3] https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/spiritual-leader
[4] https://www.travelwithannita.com/ten-things-you-should-know-about-dr-benjamin-e-mays/
[5] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/mays-benjamin-elijah
[6] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/mays-benjamin-elijah
[7] https://www.mayssite.org/remembering-dr-mays-legacy