Early Life & Education
Benjamin Elijah Mays was born in 1894 in Ninety Six, South Carolina, the youngest of eight children; his parents were tenant farmers and former slaves. As a child, seeing his father threatened by a white mob on horseback in the aftermath of the Phoenix Election Riot made a deep impression.
After spending a year at Virginia Union University, he moved north to attend Bates College in Maine, where he obtained his B.A. in 1920, then entered the University of Chicago as a graduate student, earning an M.A. in 1925 and a Ph.D. in the School of Religion in 1935. His education at Chicago was interrupted several times: he was ordained a Baptist minister in 1922 and accepted a pastorate at the Shiloh Baptist Church of Atlanta, then later taught at Morehouse and at South Carolina State College.
While in graduate school Mays worked as a Pullman Porter. He also worked as a student assistant to Dr. Lacey Kirk Williams, pastor of Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago and President of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
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