UNC Press - Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement

352 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 25 halftones, notes, bibl., index

Cloth

ISBN 978-0-8078-3536-4

Published: May 2012

Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement

A Biography

By Randal Maurice Jelks

Awards & Distinctions

2013 BCALA Literary Award, Black Caucus of the American Library Association

In this first full-length biography of Benjamin Mays (1894-1984), Randal Maurice Jelks chronicles the life of the man Martin Luther King Jr. called his "spiritual and intellectual father." Dean of the Howard University School of Religion, president of Morehouse College, and mentor to influential black leaders, Mays had a profound impact on the education of the leadership of the black church and of a generation of activists, policymakers, and educators. Jelks argues that Mays's ability to connect the message of Christianity with the responsibility to challenge injustice prepared the black church for its pivotal role in the civil rights movement.

From Mays's humble origins in Epworth, South Carolina, through his doctoral education, his work with institutions such as the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the national YMCA movement, and his significant career in academia, Jelks creates a rich portrait of the man, the teacher, and the scholar. Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement is a powerful portrayal of one man’s faith, thought, and mentorship in bringing American apartheid to an end.

About the Author

Randal Maurice Jelks is associate professor of American Studies and African American Studies at the University of Kansas and author of African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Grand Rapids.

Reviews

“Jelks helps to bring the “religious dimension” back to the center of the conversation.”
--History News Network

“A civil rights pioneer gets his due.”
--Kansas City Star

“Jelks should be applauded for depicting twentieth-century race relations through the eyes of Benjamin Elijah Mays. . .[In doing so] he provides readers with a new perspective on the fight for civil rights.”
--North Carolina Historical Review

"A compelling biography of one of the most significant leaders in the struggle for African American civil rights in twentieth-century America. . . . An important contribution to better understand the critical role of black colleges and their presidents during the civil rights era."
--Journal of American History

"Jelks uses Benjamin Mays as a lens through which to view the institutions, ideas, and personalities that sustained black thinkers and theologians during decades of struggle. This book is essential in filling out the picture of African American intellectual and cultural life through much of the twentieth century."
--Paul Harvey, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

"Jelks demonstrates how this spiritual and intellectual giant reinvigorated the country’s religious faith and brought it to bear on contemporary problems. This compelling assessment of Mays is a powerful and moving tribute and will be taken seriously by scholars and public alike."
--Orville Vernon Burton, author The Age of Lincoln