Mays taught and mentored many influential activists, including Martin Luther King Jr, Julian Bond, Maynard Jackson, and Donn Clendenon, among others.

Mays' commitment to social justice through nonviolence and civil resistance were cultivated from his youth through the lessons imbibed from his parents and eldest sister.

The peak of his public influence coincided with his nearly three-decade tenure as the sixth president of Morehouse College, a historically black institution of higher learning, in Atlanta, Georgia.

He traveled North to attend Bates College and the University of Chicago from where he began his career in activism as a pastor in Georgia's Shiloh Baptist Church.

After a brief career as a professor, he was appointed the founding Dean of the School of Religion at Howard University in 1934 which elevated him to national prominence as a proponent of the New Negro movement.

Mays stepped down from the Morehouse presidency in 1967 continuing to work as a leader in the African American community through national social tours.

Numerous efforts have been brought forward to posthumously award Mays the Presidential Medal of Freedom as well as feature him on a U.S. postage stamp.

After a year more in Richmond, Mays elevated his grades to the top of his class and wrote personally to Bates president George Colby Chase.

[28] Although he would experience little racism in college, upon seeing The Birth of a Nation in a local cinema, the crowd cheered for the white slaver which frightened Mays.

Early on in his academic career he decided to join Omega Psi Phi, a national fraternity for colored men.

[36] Much of the money he had earned growing up was spent financing his time at Bates, on Christmas Day 1921, Mays held only 45 dollars (equivalent to $769 in 2023).

While there, the Urban League produced what became known as the "Mays Report", which detailed the growth of Tampa's African-American communities and the difficulties they experienced living in segregated neighborhoods.

Though he did not stay in the area for long, Mays made enough of an impact on the nascent push for civil rights in the region that he has been honored with a bust on the Tampa Riverwalk Historical Monument Trail.

[43] A couple of months later, he was asked to serve as the director of Study of Black Churches in the United States by the Institute of Social and Religious Research of New York.

[45] In 1932, Mays returned to the University of Chicago with the intent of completing a Ph.D. in line with what was asked by the Institute of Social and Religious Research of New York.

[51] After he successfully removed the School of Religion from the auspices of the federal government he was tasked with securing funding from wealthy donors from the North.

[53] Salaries for professors increased, new dorms were built and refurbished, the library Mays had been developing was completed, and new lecture halls were established.

[58] Wheeler told Mays that the school had a tough time with getting tuition payments out of the students, growing their endowment, and establishing national prominence.

[57] The two spoke for an hour and a half about the realities and powers of militant pacifism which he used to shape his civil rights ideology and practice.

"[64] Mays set out to improve the training of Morehouse men, increase enrollment, grow its endowment, and collect tuition payments.

[32] The introduction to his speech compilation at Morehouse notes him with the following: In physical stature Mays stood six feet tall, but appeared taller because of his erect posture--a habit he developed during his youth to walk around with dignity and pride; he weighed approximately 180 pounds and had a full head of iron-grey air with a contrasting dark complexion.

[69] During the Kennedy administration, southern members of the Senate blocked Mays' appointment to the United States Civil Rights Commission by accusing him of being a Communist.

[1] Mays gave the benediction at the close of the official program of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.

If they could turn their sorrow into hope for the future and use their outrage to invigorate a peaceful climb to the mountaintop, Martin Luther King Jr. will have died a redemptive death from which all mankind will benefit.

"[1] Mays began teaching again, and served as a private advisor to the president of Michigan State University and went on to publish Disturbed About Man, a collection of his sermons at Morehouse College.

[78] On July 1, 1973, Mays appointed Alonzo Crim as the first African-American superintendent of schools, which was met with backlash from the other board members and city officials.

[32] The Atlanta Board of Education had a rule against naming buildings after people unless they had been deceased for two years; they waived it for Mays; he visited the school frequently when it was being built.

[32] Bates College's highest alumni distinction is known as the Benjamin E. Mays Medal and is reserved for "the alumna or alumnus who has performed distinguished service to the larger (worldwide) community and been deemed a graduate of outstanding accomplishment."

[78] Mays has been the subject or inspiration of memorials, and the eponym of hundreds of buildings, schools, streets, halls, awards, grants, scholarships, fellowships, and statues.

A request was sent once again to U.S. President George W. Bush by Georgian representatives Max Cleland and Zell Miller which passed both houses of Congress but has yet to be signed by a U.S.