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Benjamin Mays was an African-American educator and a vocal opponent of segregation and discrimination who influenced the thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. Political scientist Colston presents a collection of the speeches, commencement addresses, sermons, and eulogies of Mays, in which he comments on race relations and the state of education in the United States. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Born the son of a sharecropper in 1894 near Ninety Six, South Carolina, Benjamin E. Mays went on to serve as president of Morehouse College for twenty-seven years and as the first president of the Atlanta School Board. His earliest memory, of a lynching party storming through his county, taunting but not killing his father, became for Mays an enduring image of black-white relations in the South. Born to Rebel is the moving chronicle of his life, a story that interlaces achievement with the rebuke he continually confronted.

At the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the eulogy was delivered by Benjamin E. Mays, former president of Morehouse College. The men had become close friends when King attended Morehouse. This famous tribute forms the opening chapter of a book dedicated by Dr. Mays to his former student, "who too was disturbed about man." In a forceful and straightforward style, Dr. Mays speaks to men of all races and faiths about how to counteract man's inhumanity to man. His message is that man does not have to attack other nations or his neighbors. He does not have to be a slave to his environment. With God's help he can overcome and improve his environment; he can "rise above the currently accepted practices and point the way to higher and nobler things."--Cover.

"The ideas of God in Negro literature are developed along three principal lines: (1) Ideas of God that are used to support or give adherence to traditional, compensatory patterns; (2) Ideas, whether traditional or otherwise, that are developed and interpreted to support a growing consciousness of social and psychological adjustment needed; (3) Ideas of God that show a tendency or threat to abandon the idea of God as a 'useful instrument' in perfecting social change." From Chapter IX, Summation

Benjamin Mays was an African-American educator and a vocal opponent of segregation and discrimination who influenced the thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. Political scientist Colston presents a collection of the speeches, commencement addresses, sermons, and eulogies of Mays, in which he comments on race relations and the state of education in the United States. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Born the son of a sharecropper in 1894 near Ninety Six, South Carolina, Benjamin E. Mays went on to serve as president of Morehouse College for twenty-seven years and as the first president of the Atlanta School Board. His earliest memory, of a lynching party storming through his county, taunting but not killing his father, became for Mays an enduring image of black-white relations in the South. Born to Rebel is the moving chronicle of his life, a story that interlaces achievement with the rebuke he continually confronted.

"The ideas of God in Negro literature are developed along three principal lines: (1) Ideas of God that are used to support or give adherence to traditional, compensatory patterns; (2) Ideas, whether traditional or otherwise, that are developed and interpreted to support a growing consciousness of social and psychological adjustment needed; (3) Ideas of God that show a tendency or threat to abandon the idea of God as a 'useful instrument' in perfecting social change." From Chapter IX, Summation

Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta was founded in 1886. The name Ebenezer means "rock or stone of help." From a small group of believers, many of whom were former slaves, in a boxlike structure on Airline Alley, Ebenezer has grown to an internationally known church with over 4,000 members. The Gothic architecture of the Heritage Sanctuary on Auburn Avenue, coupled with the influence of the African meetinghouse seen in the architecture of the Horizon Sanctuary across the street, reflects the diversity of outreach of Ebenezer's ministry. Ebenezer has been a beacon of racial pride and social consciousness. The love and cooperation between the members and the pastor have created a family atmosphere that has sustained the growth and expansion of the church.