Bernard Mayes

Bernard Mayes

Anthony Bernard Duncan Mayes (born October 10, 1929) is a retired teacher, broadcaster, university dean, lecturer and author. Born in Britain, Mayes is now a citizen of the United States of America. He lives in San Francisco.

After studying classical civilizations at Cambridge University, Mayes worked first as a high school teacher of Latin, Greek and history. He was then ordained as an Anglican priest. Mayes emigrated to the United States in 1958 and became an Episcopal worker-priest and director of a student house attached to Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village and New York University (NYU). He then moved to the Diocese of California where he held a parish near San Francisco. While in San Francisco, Mayes founded San Francisco Suicide Prevention, later used as a model throughout the United States. Openly gay himself, Mayes organized a sexuality study center for the Episcopal Diocese of California. This ministry, originally known as the Parsonage, was awarded the Episcopal Jubilee citation and later evolved into the present-day Oasis organization. In 1992 he abandoned religion and became an atheist, eventually originating the concept of what he described as 'Soupism' meaning that all things and beings are composed only of energy and are continuously changing into other beings and things.In 2012, despite his atheism he was later honored by the San Francisco Night Ministry and both the California Assembly and Senate for his public service.

Beginning in 1958 he worked as a journalist for the BBC and other networks, and in 1968 he helped organize the public broadcasting system in the United States, becoming first the founder of KQED-FM and Executive Vice President of KQED TV in San Francisco, then a co-founder and first working chairman of NPR National Public Radio. He then became a consultant for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., advising universities and communities across the country. During this time he wrote, produced and performed in a variety of books and dramatizations such as Lord of the Rings, Homer's Odyssey, etc. Invited in 1984 to join the English faculty of the University of Virginia,(Uva), Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991 he was appointed assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, and then chair of the Communications department, finally founding the Program in Media Studies. He was awarded the Sullivan/Harrison award for mentoring and received a commendation by the University Seven Society. On retiring from the University in 1999 he published his autobiography 'Escaping God's Closet' (University Press of Virginia) which received the national Lambda award for religion and spirituality, and in 2000 University of Virginia alumni named the Bernard D. Mayes award after him. Mayes has been included in Who's Who in America for 1999, Who's Who in Religion, and Who's Who in Entertainment. His papers are to be found in the National Public Broadcasting Archives of the University of Maryland, the Special Collections of the University of Virginia, and in the Library of Congress.

In 1991 he co-founded the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual Faculty, Staff and Graduate Student Association at the University of Virginia, known as UVa Pride, and the Serpentine Society. On his retirement in 1999, the University of Virginia's LGBT alumni association, the Serpentine Society, gave Mayes a lifetime achievement award for his accomplishments and for his contributions to UVA in particular. Each year since then, the Serpentine Society has honored a distinguished graduate of UVA with a Bernard D. Mayes Award for service and leadership in the LGBT community. Mayes also received a lifetime achievement award from San Francisco Suicide Prevention. In 2009 he returned to San Francisco where he now lives. In 2010 he was given a prestigious Jefferson Award for Public Service, most notably for his suicide prevention work stiill used as a model nationwide. He now resides in San Francisco.