A Long Journey: Dr. Benjamin E. Mays

About the Book

This volume contains twenty-one speeches on the long and enduring struggle for equal rights, from one of America’s finest scholars and orators on race relations in American history. Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. He witnessed race relations (1920s –1980s), and the transformation of America from a rigidly segregated society to a desegregated social structure. Mays is often referred to as the “Godfather of the Civil Rights Movement” of the 1960s, since he mentored many of the leaders of the movement. And he is acknowledged as the spiritual and intellectual mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. – the selfless leader of the most important social movement of the twentieth century, and the Nobel laureate’s birthday is a national holiday celebrated on the third Monday in January annually. Outside of King’s immediate family, Dr. Mays influenced his spiritual and intellectual maturation more than anyone else.

About the Author

Freddie C. Colston edited, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Speaks: Representative Speeches of a Great American Orator (2002); and he has published essays in professional journals. He received his B.A. in political science in 1959 from Morehouse College; M.A. from Atlanta University in 1966 and the Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1972. He has taught at several colleges and universities. In addition to his university teaching, Professor Colston served for seven and one-half years as an associate director at the Executive Seminar Center, U. S. Office of Personnel Management in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is currently a retired political science professor.