
          Benjamin Elijah Mays 1894-1984
          By Cook, Samuel DuBoisSamuel DuBois Cook
          Vol. 6, No. 3, 1984, pp. 21-24
          
          As I have said so often, I am one of Bennie Mays' "boys." I have
been one of his "boys" since I was a kid in the rolling countryside
and on the red hills of Griffin, Georgia, and I will be one of his
"boys" until I die.
          Dr. Mays had a love affair with the basic and perennial values of
the human enterprise: excellence, decency, justice, non-violence,
love, good will, reason, nobility, concern for others, compassion for
human suffering, respect for the dignity and worth of every man,
woman, and child, sensitivity to human needs, a heightened sense of
personal and social responsibility, and the love of God. He was so
many things: prophet, scholar, educator, apostle of social justice,
champion of human excellence, author, humanist, humanitarian, teacher,
voice of the voiceless, a chief founder of the Civil Rights Movement
and the Black Revolution, a major architect of the New South,
inspirer, motivator, and transformer of youth, and peerless spokesman
of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.
          Dr. Mays was a hard taskmaster. I sometimes thought that it was
easier to please God than Dr. Mays. His standards for himself and
others were inordinately high, lofty, and demanding. Truly, they could
never be fully satisfied--thank God. He kept us stretching, striving,
aspiring, and always looking up.
          I have told him that the title of one of his books, Lord,
the People Have Driven Me On, was a great misnomer. The Lord
knows that Bennie Mays drove the people on. And I told him that Bennie
Mays drove the good Lord on. He was always inexhaustible, creatively
restless, irrepressible, tireless, always dreaming of new worlds to
conquer, new 

mountains to climb, new rivers to cross, new tasks to
tackle, new challenges to meet. Life, for him, could never be
finished. No wonder that, in spite of the spate of books he wrote, he
was working on three more when he died. And he always thought that his
best book, on the Brown public school desegregation case of 1954, was
yet to be written. He lived in the world of anticipation, and not
simply in the world of memory. He lived in the creative world of
hope. He died dreaming. He died aspiring to greater things and loftier
heights. What a magnificent way to die! Dr. Mays was a daring,
incurable, and incredible dreamer. Dreams were a central part of his
longevity, productivity, meaning, zest, and inspiration.
          Dr. Mays was born free. He lived free. He died free. Always
courageous, he was a prophet to the core of his being--always
emphasizing the creative tension between the "is" and the "ought,"
promise and fulfillment, the Kingdom of man and the Kingdom of God. He
never forgot the prophetic responsibility to speak "truth to power."
He was always his own man, always a man of great moral courage,
rebellion, and affirmation. Fierce independence and individualism,
nobility, and supreme integrity were hallmarks of his great
life. "Never sell you soul" was a central theme and imperative of his
teachings and life. His soul was never for sale to anybody at anytime
for any price. In a world of constant pressures and counter-pressures,
he had supreme integrity, character, and incorruptibility.
          Bennie Mays taught us how to live. He also taught us how to
die. Miss Cordeila Blount, his devoted niece, said to me the day of
his death: "Bernie was so remarkable. He was remarkable in life. He
was remarkable in the twilight of life and in death." Yes, our beloved
Dr. Mays lived with grace and dignity, and died with grace and
dignity.
          Even as he confronted the frailties of age and death, Buck Bennie
was mighty tough. He made a game of wrestling with, and defying
death. He was utterly defiant and outrageously uncooperative. More
than once, he escaped the cold clutches of death, with the clarion
call "I ain't got time' to die." "I'm too busy serving my master."
Until the final encounter, he won every battle with death. This was so
symbolic of the man. Dr. Mays was always a great fighter--whatever or
whomever the foe.
          Mrs. Sally Warner, his superb confidante, great friend, and
assistant, told him, after he had been in intensive care at the
hospital a few months ago, that she had called several people. Alert
and sharp as always, he got the message. As only Bennie Mays would and
could say, he commented: "I fooled you, didn't I?" He fooled all of us
so many times.
          "The time and place of a man's life on earth are the time and place
of his body," said Howard Thurman, "but the meaning and significance
of his life are as vast and as 

far-reaching as his gifts, his times,
and the passionate commitment of all his powers can make it."
          Dr. Mays touched, enriched, inspired, educated, motivated,
transformed so many lives--black and white, rich and poor, male and
female, learned and untutored, Gentile and Jew, Protestant and
Catholic, Northerner and Southerner, religionist and secularist. So
many owe him so much.
          Dr. Mays lived a long life. But longevity has no intrinsic
merit. As Dr. Mays reminded us so often, it is not how long but how
well. It is not the quantity of years but the quality of service that
counts. Dr. Mays gave to life the highest and the best we can give to
life: the gift of self. He followed his own advice that "Lives are
saved by giving them away." "The truly great men of history are not
those who hoard and keep," said Dr. Mays, "but those who dedicate
their lives to some great cause and who give themselves to the benefit
of the people." Again, "the only way to save our lives is to give
ourselves to others in some worthwhile service. Giving is the inherent
in living."
          Dr. Mays was one of the world's greatest educators and 

philosophers
of education because he applied the Christian conception of human
vocation and service to the whole educational process.
          With ringing eloquence and prophetic power, Bennie Mays insisted
that
The search for happiness is an unworthy
goal. y you go out looking for happiness, you don't know what to look
for or where to look. yyou marry looking for happiness, it is an
unworthy aim. People should marry because they love each other; not
for happiness, but for better, for worse, for richer, for
poorer.
          It is
Not important that people be happy. Was
Moses happy? .... Was Socrates happy? .... Was Jesus happy? .... Was
Mahatma Gandhi happy? ....
          
            
              We argue still further, what right have we
to be happy? They tell me half of the people of the earth are starving
Why should we have bread enough and to spare while our brother
starves? To be personal, who am I? I am no better than my starving
brother. Who am I to be happy? But for the grace of God. I, too, might
be starving Who am I to ride around in Pullman cars and jets while
others starve?
            
          
          
            
              Where may happiness be
found?
            
          
          
            
              If happiness is to be found, it will be
found in noble endeavor, endeavor that gives satisfaction and is
beneficial to mankind. It will be found in struggling, in toiling, and
in accomplishing something worthwhile. Happiness, if it is to be
found, will be found in a job well done ....
            
          
          
            
              If happiness is to be found, it will be
found in pursuing and accomplishing something worth" while, and the
quest must be continuous--no complacency and no
satisfaction.
            
          
          
            
              If happiness is to be found, it will be
found in noble living A man lives nobly when he has an honest
conscience, when he can say: The community is better off because I
gave my best to it. I did not exploit people for my personal gain
. . .
            
          
          
            
              If happiness is to be found, it will be
found when we live more for others than we do for
ourselves.
            
          
          Yes, Bennie Mays represents the Kingdom not of this world. The
Kingdom not of this world is the Kingdom of God. It is the Kingdom of
truth, love, righteousness, human service, social and racial justice
and caring--beyond race, color, creed, sex, ethnicity, culture and
other boundaries of estrangement.
          What greater legacy can a person leave to his loved ones, friends,
disciples and fellow human beings than the precious, unique and
enduring legacy of Bennie Mays?
          You and I must make his vision, legacy and work our own. Because of
the death of Bennie Mays, you and I, all of us, must do a little more
to promote the cause of excellence, decency, justice, the higher
possiblities of history and culture and the Beloved Community of all
of God's children. To mind come the words of Micah: "He has showed
you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to
do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your
God?"
          So, our very special Dr. Mays, our beloved Bennie Ma. our "Buck
Bennie," who has meant so much to so many, we mournfully and yet with
joy, say: Hail, thanks, love and farewell.
          
            Samuel DuBois Cook is President of Dillard University and
a member of the executive committee of the Southern Regional
Council. Dr. Cook's remarks are excerpted from his eulogy to
Dr. Mays.
            Excerpts from the eulogy by Samuel DuBois Cook, March 31,
1984.
          
          
            By Gloster, Hugh M.Hugh M. Gloster 
            Vol. 6, No. 3, 1984, p. 22
            Dr. Mays had his "finest hour" as President of Morehouse College,
where he worked for thirty of his eighty-nine years--from 1921 to 1924
as a teacher and from 1940 to 1967 as President. When he assumed the
presidency in 1940, the College had been seriously weakened for eleven
years by self-sacrificing contributions of President, teachers,
facilities, and land to the Atlanta University Affiliation and by
inflation, recession, unemployment, and other ravages of the Great
Depression. By the time he retired in 1967, however, he had laid a
firm foundation for the future growth and development of the
College.
            Dr. Mays had to wait a long time to see the demise of
disfranchisement and segregation in Georgia. He was fifty-two years of
age and had been President of Morehouse for six years before he was
finally able to vote in local and state elections, and he was
seventy-two and nearing retirement at Morehouse before he finally saw
segregation fade away in this state.
            The overthrow of segregation in Georgia required a massive effort,
and at the forefront of that effort were many students of
Dr. Mays. Hamilton Holmes was one of the first two blacks to gain
admission to the University of Georgia. Martin_Luther_King, Jr., upset
segregation first in Montgomery and finally throughout the country and
then went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and become the nation's
greatest civil_rights leader. Lonnie King and Julian Bond, Morehouse
students, led the sit-ins that integrated restaurants and hotels in
Atlanta. Maynard Jackson became the first black Mayor of Atlanta, and
honorary alumnus Andy Young succeeded him in that office. In addition,
Michael Lomax was elected as the first Black Chairman of the Fulton
County Commission, and Horace Ward was appointed as the first black
Federal Judge in this state.
          
          
            --From the funeral tribute to Dr. Mays by Hugh
M. Gloster, President of Morehouse College.
          
          
            By 
              Mays, Benjamin E.Benjamin E. Mays 
            Vol. 6, No. 3, 1984, p. 23
            As a child my life was one of frustration and doubt. Nor did the
situation improve as I grew older. Long before I could visualize them,
I knew within my body, my mind, and my spirit that I faced galling
restrictions, seemingly insurmountable barriers, dangers and
pitfalls. I had to find answers to two immediate and practical
problems: 1) How could I overcome my father's immutable opposition to
my insatiable desire to get an education; and 2) Even if I succeeded
in changing Father's attitude, how could I get the money to go away to
school? I knew that my father had no money to give me, but I longed
for his sympathetic approval, or at least his consent.
            There was a third problem which, though not so immediate, was even
more urgent--more frustrating, more confusing. This was a "white_man's
world." How could I be free in this world? How could I grow to my full
stature as a man? The white boy born in Greenwood County, South
Carolina knew that the county, the state, and the nation belonged to
the white world and therefore to him. As one of the disinherited, one
of the black boys, how could I know that a part of the county, state,
and the nation belonged to me too? How could I exist, let alone live,
without cringing and kowtowing to white_men as I had seen my elders
do? How could I walk the earth with dignity and pride? How could I
aspire to achieve, to accomplish, to "be somebody" when there were for
Negroes no established goals? Moreover, aspiring was dangerous. It was
all right for a Negro to "hitch his wagon," but he'd better not "hitch
it to a (white) star." My teacher in the one-room school, my pastor,
and the church people of Mount Zion had inspired me to want an
education far beyond what the four-month Brickhouse School could
offer, and away beyond what my parents could possibly provide. How
then could I get to a better school? How could I manage to remain in
school more than four months out of the year?
            My greatest opposition to going away to school was my father. When
I knew that I had learned everything I could in the one-room
Brickhouse School and realized how little that was, my father felt
that this was sufficient--that it was all I needed. Weren't there only
two honest occupations for Negro men--preaching and farming? My father
must have repeated this dictum a thousand times. What did schooling
have to do with farming? Would reading all the books in the world
teach a man how to plow, to plant cotton and corn, gather the grain,
and harvest the crop? Since my father saw no future for his sons
except farming, education was not necessary. It was equally
superfluous for the ministry. God "called" men to preach; and when He
called them, He would tell them what to say!
            Father had another reason. He was convinced that the education went
to one's head and made him a fool and dishonest. One of my cousins, a
bright sixth- or seventh-grade scholar who taught at one of the county
schools for the miserable salary paid Negro teachers during that
period, forged a note on a bank, skipped town, and was never
caught. He never returned to his home community. Later he joined the
Ninth Cavalry. He wrote me occasionally, telling how much better the
racial situation was in his part of Kansas than it was in the
South. Whenever I pressed my father about further schooling, he would
always remind me of what my cousin had done. The more education, the
bigger the fool and crook! Though less literate than my father, my
mother was far more understanding of my problems, and was a
sympathetic listener to my hopes and dreams, my fears and plans. She
had only two things to give me--her love and her prayers. She gave
both with an open heart.
            My mother believed that God answered prayers. Though not so
credulous or optimistic about prayer as she, I was nonetheless greatly
influenced by her prayer life. I sought a way out through prayer. I
prayed frequently as I worked in the field and many nights alone in
the moonlight. I often plowed to the end of the row, hitched the mule
to a tree, and went down into the woods to pray. On moonlight nights,
I would leave the house and go into the field and pray. My prayers
were all variations of the same theme: a petition to God to enable me
to get away to school. My desire for an education was not only a dream
but a goal that drove me and prodded me, day and night. I left the
farm not to escape it but to find my world, to become myself.
            I accepted the prayer jargon of the older people. I asked God to
move out of my way "every hindrance and cause" which kept me from
getting an education. Afterward I was sorry that I had prayed that
way, for if God had answered my prayers as spoken, Father would have
been the first obstacle to be moved out.
          
          
            --Benjamin E. Mays, Born To Rebel
(1971).
          
        
