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49 —3— In Search of a Call To be able to stand the troubles of life, one must have a sense of mission and the belief that God sent him or her into the world for a purpose, to do something unique and distinctive; and that if he does not do it, life will be worse off because it was not done. —mays, Quotable Quotes of Benjamin E. Mays An interviewer once posed a question to Mays concerning his choice to become an “educator” rather than be a full-time clergyman. Mays responded, “As a rule . . . I don’t think there are many people who chart their course precisely.”1 This was certainly true for him. His career began inauspiciously after graduating from Bates. From 1920 until 1930 he lived a picaresque life in the sense that he moved through various jobs trying to gain status and prominence and a position to exercise his ministry. Mays’s decision to accept his calling as a Baptist clergyman was not simple. Ever ambitious, he did not want to be an ordinary black clergyman. Among many evangelical Protestants it was not necessary to have studied at a Bible college or seminary or to have earned a degree, let alone an advanced degree. If a congregation accepted an individual’s calling to the ministry, their acceptance was sufficient acknowledgment that the call was legitimate. A larger association or denominational body endorsed calls in most instances following a local congregation’s approval. However, not all calls were endorsed, and many times charismatic religious leaders formed their own congregations and denominations . This made Protestant ministry, especially among independent Baptists, highly competitive and required that ministers be skillful organizers and political tacticians. It also gave black Protestant congregants a means of choosing their own leadership outside the standards of what white or black middle-class deemed respectable. A minister’s status in the black Baptist churches was more likely to be determined by skillful oration, showmanship, and a mass following. This is not to say that black Baptists were not concerned about issues of church doctrine; they were. Although these ministers guided their churches under Baptist rules and tenets, they were nevertheless often wily, shrewd, and sometimes Machiavellian, a point that Mays never forgot about his childhood minister, Reverend Marshall. 50 : in search of a call Mays faced two impediments to his ministerial aspirations. The first was his social status within his denomination. As a rural southerner, even one with a college degree, he had no standing in the growing number of churches in the cities to which black people migrated in large numbers. It might have been possible for him to have apprenticed in a large city church, provided a pastor was willing to nurture the ambitions of a potential rival. Black Baptist ministers who secured large economically stable congregations in cities jealously guarded their pulpits from young upstarts, who, with the right amount of charisma, might siphon off a significant number of congregants to form a rival congregation. Second, leadership within black Baptist congregations was often a family affair, that is, apprentice positions were open most often only to the sons (or sons-in-law) of ministers who were routinely groomed to succeed their fathers.2 In addition, if Mays was fortunate enough to secure such a position, it would have been parttime , which would not have given him enough money to attend school. His best option after graduating from Bates, then, was going directly to graduate school.3 When Mays graduated from college, his plate was full; he needed to earn money to marry and support his fiancé, Ellen Harvin, start graduate school at the University of Chicago, and financially assist his parents. In August of 1920, Mays married Harvin in Newport News, Virginia, and then returned to South Carolina to visit his parents after a three-year absence. His vocational plans, with the encouragement of Ellen, were progressing along steadily. After he and his new bride visited his parents in the first weeks of September, he planned to workuntil the end of December. He intended to save his tips and wages to help pay his University of Chicago tuition. He would not anticipate the employment difficulties he would encounter. Mays’s employment record as a Pullman porter in the fall of 1920 was a living testimony to why the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (bscp), the product of the successful unionization effort led by A. Philip Randolph and Milton P. Webster, was needed...

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