By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

Sedition was hatched in the Chapel.

The revolution was sown on Tuesday mornings in the chapel on Morehouse campus.

Dr. Benjamin Mays, President of Morehouse, waded into injustice unmercifully in those chapel gatherings. The men of Morehouse would go to the far ends of the South, to the far ends of the Nation. They would even be found across the new nations of Africa. Always they would remember the Tuesday morning chapel meetings.

"I spent half of my life," says the now ever-young retired minister and educator, "demonstrating to myself I was not inferior. I spent the rest carrying that message to the students at Morehouse."

They learned it well on Tuesday mornings in the chapel.

"They would come up to me after chapel," recalls the famous Atlanta leader, "and want to chat and question. That was all right. They came first in my book. Sadie, my second wife, (his first wife, Ellen, died in 1922) and I often had them over to the house just to sit and chat. That was good too. We all learned a lot."

Sedition was planned at President Mays' home also. "Your mind does not have to sit in the back of the bus," he would say.

They sat. They hoped. They learned. When the time to march came, they, his men of Morehouse, would be ready.

It was in that chapel on the campus, he pounded home the message. "I went into a police station in Tampa one time to get some information. They looked at me and said, 'nigger, take your hat off when you speak to us.' Well, I never wore a hat again. There are ways to rebel. I have spent my life doing it. You can too."

In the mid-forties, a bright young man from the city of Atlanta came to Morehouse. He was not a resident on campus. He lived at home. His father was an Atlanta pastor. Going to the Tuesday chapel assembly was not a necessity for him. But young King never missed a morning. And he had questions -- lots and lots of questions.

"Often, he followed me to the office," recalls Dr. Mays in his home in Southwest Atlanta, "and we would talk for ages. Sometimes faculty members wanted to see me but if Martin was there first, we talked. He was always there first."

The young Martin King introduced his college president to his family. Sunday dinners became a regular occasion. The friendship and the life long association took place. The faith teachings, the life experience, the determination of Dr. Benjamin Mays to be fully free were all deposited for future reference in the mind of the black minister's son -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The first crisis between the King family and I came," remembers the former Morehouse President, "when Martin wanted to lead the Montgomery march. His father did not want him to go. 'Enough has been done' was his attitude. He called me and I said this is his moment, this is God's will, let him go."

King went and marched to the strains of the old spiritual "ain't gonna let nobody turn me round, turn me round, turn me round…"

Dr. Benjamin Mays had lived by that spiritual all his glorious days. He is a son of the South. He was born on "Dr. Childs' place" out in the country, in Greenwood, South Carolina back in 1894. Both his parents were former slaves.

Memories of those South Carolina days are vivid. "I remember meeting my first mob when I was four. They were on their way to Phoenix (S.C.) to lynch Negroes. I remember the terror, the feelings. I remember knowing this is not right. I am a person like them. I remember my father telling us how he fought two white men at one time. He knocked one down and then took on the other. I felt good for him."

"I remember there were two things blacks did not do. First was pass a white man on a dusty road. Second was pass a white man on a muddy road. I also remember that my father did both."

"I remember that I wanted to learn, to go to school, but my father wanted me on the farm to work. So we compromised. I was allowed to go four months of the year. The rest I gave to him."

But it wasn't enough for the young Benjamin. Education was his vocation. He felt it. He knew his destiny lay in fulfilling his own need to know and also the unmet needs of blacks in the South. He armed himself well for that life of academics.

"I got a lot of opposition, it was hard going," remembers Dr. Mays. "My father did not want me to go to South Carolina State. My teachers there said I would freeze (I almost did) if I went to Lewiston in Maine and funds almost prevented me from going to the University of Chicago. But I followed my destiny." He obtained his doctorate in Chicago and in 1940 became President of Morehouse in Atlanta.

"I knew I was at home here in Atlanta," says Dr. Mays, "but like the rest of the nation and especially the South, life for a black man or woman was not easy."

The message of inferiority was constantly being preached and to those willing to accept or believe the message life could be simple. The President of Morehouse had no intention of believing or allowing others to believe those heretical preachings.

"You handled it in this way," says the untiring revolutionary. "You used segregated facilities only when you had to. I did not ever have to go to a segregated theater so I didn't go. But I had to use the public bus at times. It was difficult to have to go to the back or maybe not get on at all. If too many whites showed up, you got no seat."

The men of Morehouse looked to their president for leadership, but so did his city and also the nation. "When Pope John died in 1963, I was one of five Americans sent to the funeral by President Kennedy. That was an honor. I asked then Vice-President Johnson on the plane who he felt about civil rights. He told me things were moving too slow. I would meet and speak with him many times as President on the same matter."

"President Kennedy had my admiration although he was scared for the march on Washington in 1963. I marched with Martin on that occasion. Bobby Kennedy was another great one. He asked me to come to Los Angeles for his final run for the nomination in 1968. I couldn't go but I did speak to the black ministers in Los Angeles for him. I was so glad he won. It was tragic too."

"In Atlanta, Ivan Allen, the mayor, was a friend and a friend of our cause. Also, Chief (of police) Jenkins was a good man. He was very helpful at times. He called me when Martin was killed and he said he knew that blacks were beginning to gather at Pascal's restaurant for a march on downtown. He asked me if I could stop the march. I told him I could not. 'Okay,' he said, 'give me 20 minutes to get the right officers over there to make sure we can keep it calm.' I knew I could hold them for 20 minutes. I did. There was a peaceful march."

"Of course," remembers the famed educator "it was Mayor Hartsfield who first hired black police in Atlanta and he will be remembered for it. They had to use the Butler Street 'Y' as their police station and they could not arrest whites. But it was a beginning.”

The most exciting era for Benjamin Mays during his long, varied life was the Martin Luther King era. Freedom was sensed. The dream of a lifetime was coming true. Was King the greatest leader of black people?

"No, he wasn't the greatest leader," says Dr. Mays. "We have had no one great leader since Booker T. Washington. And I hope we never need just ONE again. Martin was one of many. He brought them together--teachers, the doctors, the tradesmen and inspired them all to rise up. The moment had come."

Was one man responsible for Dr. King's death? "One man shot him," says Benjamin Mays pointedly, "and he's behind bars. But others were involved. The police let him escape. He was arrested in Europe. Of course there was a conspiracy. They wanted him dead, someone paid to have it done. He disturbed the status quo. And the conspirators are still out there."

Before Dr. King left for Memphis and his final march on behalf of the garbage strikers in that city, he came to see his old teacher. "It was another campaign for him. There was always danger. He knew it. It was no different from the others. He knew it would be dangerous." Dr. King was shot on April 4, 1968. He was 39 years old. Dr. Benjamin Mays, before a crowd of 200,000 people, preached his eulogy.

Is there still a need for the black college? It is a question near to the heart of Benjamin Mays. "Need, need?" he questions, rising from his chair. "Of course the need is there. Every group needs an image. Kennedy needed the Irish. They said about Lindberg 'Lindy is a Swede.' Blacks need their colleges to give them pride. Colleges like Morehouse were born out of slavery. The message of equality has to be told over and over. It must be told from black pulpits across this country. Black colleges will provide the voices to tell that message."

For 27 years he had served as President of Morehouse College. He had been mentor and spiritual father to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Presidents and Prime Ministers have sought his counsel. Each year this modern day prophet, who has seen and helped an entire nation change its legal system to heal injustice, travels from coast to coast carrying his respected message that all men and women are God's children. My question to this unique man of our generation was this: now that segregation is dead, what is the next chapter for the minority peoples of this nation.

With ice in his clear voice, tempered by the softness in his all-seeing eyes, he answered, "Who said it is dead?"

In that final instant, I had the feel, I believe, of those revolutionary roots planted over many years in the Morehouse chapel by Benjamin Mays.