According to many scholars, this South Carolina native is one of the most significant figures in American history. Who is he, you ask? Let’s find out.
As the son of freed sharecroppers, Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays grew up in the small town of Epworth, South Carolina, not far from Greenwood. With a passion for education, he attended SC State State College for his high school degree then headed north to attend college.
He became President of Morehouse College in 1940 where he is credited with laying the intellectual foundations of the American civil rights movement. Many say if it wasn’t for Dr. Mays there wouldn’t have been a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was one of Mays’s students.
This apostle of peace used rhetoric and intellectual pursuits focused on the spread of nonviolence and civil resistance. Dr. Mays also served as a trusted advisor to 6 U-S Presidents.
