Described by Martin Luther King, Jr. as a “spiritual mentor and intellectual father,” Benjamin Elijah Mays was a distinguished Atlanta educator who served as president of Morehouse College from 1940 to 1967. While King was a student at Morehouse, the two men developed a relationship that continued throughout King’s life.
Mays was born in Epworth, South Carolina, on 1 August 1894 to former slaves Hezekiah and Louvenia Carter. After briefly attending Virginia Union University, Mays transferred to Bates College in Maine, where he earned his B.A. in 1920. The following year, he was ordained as a Baptist minister. After earning his M.A. and PhD. from the University of Chicago, Mays served as dean of the School of Religion at Howard University from 1934 to 1940.
As president of Morehouse College, Mays delivered weekly addresses at the college’s chapel services. King often followed Mays to his office after these sessions to discuss theology and current events. Mays visited King and his parents at their home and became a regular guest at the family’s Sunday night dinners. According to King, his ministerial aspirations were deeply influenced by Mays and Morehouse professor George Kelsey. In a 1956 interview, King commented, “I could see in their lives the ideal of what I wanted a minister to be.” Mays continued to support King throughout his life, delivering the benediction at the 1963 March on Washington and endorsing King’s decision to speak out against the Vietnam War. In 1968, Mays delivered King’s eulogy on the Morehouse campus.
Following King’s assassination, Mays remained active in the civil rights movement. He served as president of the United Negro College Fund and was the first black president of the Atlanta Board of Education. He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the Peace Corps and on the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Commission for UNESCO. At the time of his death in 1984, Mays had received twenty-eight honorary degrees as well as the NAACP’s highest honor, the Spingarn Medal.