Born to Rebel: An Autobiography

While We Can Still Believe In Heroes

Although my reading about Martin Luther King, Jr. had given me some knowledge about his teacher and friend Benjamin E. Mays (1894 -- 1984), Gary Dorrien's book "Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King and the Black Social Gospel" (2018) prompted me to explore Mays in his own words. Dorrien's book explores the influence of the social gospel movement as practiced by African Americans as a crucial influence on King; and he sees Mays as a leading practitioner of the Black Social Gospel which taught a liberal theology and the need for social engagement on behalf of the poor, marginalized and dispossessed as an essential part of Christianity. Dorrien defines the key teachings of Black Social Gospel as follows (Dorrien, p. 3)

"The full-fledged black social gospel stood for social justice religion and modern critical consciousness. It combined an emphasis on black dignity and personhood with protest activism for racial justice, a comprehensive social justice agenda,, an insistence that authentic Christian faith is incompatible with racial prejudice, an emphasis on the social teaching of Jesus, and an acceptance of modern scholarship and social consciousness"

May's autobiography, written in 1970, nowhere uses the term "Black Social Gospel" , but Dorrien's characterization of the movement and its applicability to Mays is apparent throughout the book. Still, this work is more an autobiography that a theological exposition. It reading Mays' story of his own life, two themes stood out for me. The first theme was Mays' lifelong passion for education and his tireless efforts to study and to make himself somebody. With the many other inspiring things in this book, the love for knowledge and wisdom and the determination to acquire it under harsh circumstances stands out. The second overarching theme of the book was Mays as the "rebel" conducting a lifelong and sometimes lonely fight against the injustices of segregation. Mays shows his sometimes personal crusade against segregation in many scenes from his youth in rural South Carolina at the outset of jim crow, through the discrimination he experienced in towns and cities, including Chicago, through his refusal to ride jim crow elevators or street cars, through his experience being turned away at hotels and restaurants. When Mays became a successful leader and administrator, he wrote of his experience with discrimination world-wide, by observing in in India and other places and by again being subjected to it on international ships and in foreign hotels. In his long life, Mays saw many changes as the United States and the world wrestled with discrimination on the basis of race and color.

Mays' autobiography begins when, as a boy of five and the son of poor sharecroppers, he saw his father threatened by a group of terrorists in South Carolina. He refers to this scene many times in his book and it left an imprint on his life. Mays had to overcome the opposition of his father to receiving anything more than the bare rudiments of an education. Through determination, he left his farm and ultimately graduated from high school at the age of 21. He supported himself through menial labor including cleaning latrines. He was able to graduate with distinction from Bates College, Maine and enrolled in graduate school at the University of Chicago. With several absences and a variety of work experiences, Mays ultimately earned the PhD in religion from Chicago at the age of 37. He served for six years as the first Dean of the School of Religion at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and accomplished much in modernizing the school and established his reputation. Mays then served 27 years (1940 -- 1967) as the sixth president of Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta. He and the school became famous under his administration. Among the students at Morehouse during Mays' tenure was a young Martin Luther King, Jr. The two became close friends, with Mays delivering the final benediction during the 1963 March on Washington and also delivering the eulogy upon King's death. The connection with King has tended to overshadow Mays' own formidable achievements. This autobiography allows the reader to see the broad scope of Mays' activities throughout most of his life. (After his retirement from Morehouse, Mays continued active as the president of the Atlanta School Board, a subject beyond the scope of the autobiography.)

This book includes more that Mays' story of his life. It includes a great deal of historical discussion of the American South, in particular, and of the course of segregation from the early 20th century to 1970. I learned a lot about the segregated society and its mores and impact on both African Americans and on whites from reading Mays' autobiography. In his youth, Mays distrusted all white people, especially southerners. As he continued his path towards education, he became more open and ecumenical in his views and had many close white friends from both the South and the North. Mays always remained a proponent of integration and of the humanity of all people rather than a proponent of separatism.

With its length and detail, the autobiography shows the public, extroverted side of Mays. It doesn't offer much in the way of his private character, his personal relationships with his two wives and his friends. It doesn't show much of his close one-on-one friendships with his students at Morehouse. In addition, while the book makes clear some of Mays' strong social and religious commitments, it doesn't discuss at any length his books and other writings. I wanted to know more about them.

This book includes a great deal of valuable material in addition to Mays' autobiography. The five appendices to the work offer a good basic overview of southern history following the end of Reconstruction and also various discussions of the Christian churches in America and their varying attitude towards racial prejudice. There is valuable documentation of efforts to address racial discrimination in the South by concerned white and black Southerners prior to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. An appendix also includes the text of Mays' eulogy for Dr. King.

Mays had asked a white scholar of race relations, George Vernon Burton, to edit the autobiography and to write a Foreword in that Mays feared that white readers would be largely unaware of Mays' life. Burton's insightful Foreword to this book helps place the autobiography in context and adds a great deal. Burton concludes his Foreword with the following apt observation:

"Generations born since the Vietnam War have found it difficult to believe in heroes, but as we study the life of Benjamin Mays, we can see how individuals make a difference in history and why we can still believe in heroes."

Reading about Benjamin Mays shows that it is, indeed, still possible for our modern world to believe in heroes.

Robin Friedman