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.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Mays
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Well, it’s early yet!”
—Robert Pirosh, U.S. screenwriter, George Seaton, George Oppenheimer, and Sam Wood. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx)
“The melancholy of having to count souls
Where they grow fewer and fewer every year
Is extreme where they shrink to none at all.
It must be I want life to go on living.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning.”
—David Elkind (20th century)