Walking Integrity: Benjamin Elijah Mays, Mentor to Martin Luther King Jr - Book Review

Baptist History and Heritage, Summer-Fall, 1999 by John H. Barnhill

Lawrence Edward Carter Sr. Editor. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1998. xv 428 pp.

Benjamin Mays (1894-1984)was prominent speaker; preacher; teacher in religion, higher education, ecumenism, civil rights--virtually every aspect of the African-American struggle for respect and equal opportunity. His youth was Southern rural, segregated, second-class--unacceptable. Determined to complete and win in a white world, Mays earned his education at Bates College, Maine, the University of Chicago, and the world. On merit, he became Dean of Religion at Howard University (1934-40) then president of Morehouse College (1940-67) where his most prominent student was Martin Luther King Jr., who learned from Mays the worth of peaceful revolution.

Walking Integrity originally appeared as a limited edition festschrift in 1994. Reissued in a larger paperback edition by Mercer University Press, it contains nineteen essays, most of which were previously published or extracted from dissertations. Each treats an aspect of Mays's life, career, or philosophy. Most depend heavily on a relatively small number of Mays's writings, especially his 1971 autobiography, Born to Rebel. Consequently, there is some repetition.

Essays overview Mays's life and career; examine his career as a debater; his academic development; his writing and speaking styles; his association with, and influence on, Martin Luther King Jr.; and various aspects of his educational, political, and religious philosophies and accomplishments.

Mays's life exemplifies twentieth-century African-American accomplishment. Determined to face white society on its terms, he fought for fairness when victory was possible and walked away with dignity when the game was rigged against him. As a Baptist minister, he replaced the emotional religion of his youth with an intellectual and ecumenical approach learned at the University of Chicago. As an educator, he expected and demanded the best of his students. His philosophy incorporated the social gospel, nonviolent revolution, and a muscular, intellectual, ecumenical Christianity. He spoke with emotion but also with a debater's coolness and logic. He was a model for twentieth-century black Christianity, whose social activism would bring a better here and now instead of a hoped-for reward in heaven.

This book might be more fulfilling if the philosophical essays had focused on the growth of Mays's ideas instead of covering all aspects of a given topic. Change could be tracked through study of Mays's other writings--9 books, over 200 articles, 800 sermons, more than 1,000 newspaper columns, 19 chapters for others' books--and his collected papers. This collection is worth exploring for what it says about the middle-class African-American religion and its role in twentieth-century America, and that's quite an accomplishment for one book.--Reviewed by John H. Barnhitt, program analyst, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.