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Marvin Gaye’s
father pleads
innocent of murder
Page 3
VOLUME 13 NUMBER 49
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PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER eulogizes his friend Ben
jamin E. Mays. From left are Albert E. Manley, president
emeritus of Spelman College; Julius S. Scott Jr., former
president of Paine College; James E. Cheek, president of
■ . I . . J, . ,
Giants of history
told —‘Make room,
Ben. E. Mays is coming’
By Mallory K. Millender
ATLANTA—The friends and
relatives who gathered at the home
of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Saturday
morning talked quietly. Mays’
niece and great-grand niece, Cor
delia J. Blount and Tawanda
Wimbish, who lived with him in
his Pamlico Drive home, greeted
the arriving guests. The at
mosphere at the home was sub
dued, yet somehow festive.
At 12:25, the Rev. Grady
Yergins Jr. asked God’s blessings
“as we go to celebrate the
homegoing of one of your greatest
servants.”
A dozen policemen on motor
cycles followed by six limousines,
led the motorcade down Ben. E.
Mays Drive, into Sewell and the
Martin Luther King Chapel on the
campus of Morehouse College.
In front of the chapel, a line of
dignitaries waited to enter the
church, including President Jimmy
Carter. Next to the former
president was former Paine
College President Julius S. Scptt
Jr., who was to read the scripture.
Coretta Scott King, widow of slain
civil rights leader Martin Luther
King Jr. arrived later, accom
pained by Martin Luther King 111.
Martin Luther King Sr., wis
among the 10 persons giving 3-
minute tributes to Dr. Mays,
whom he called “my best friend.”
Gov. Joe Frank Harris sat in the
huge chapel as did Atlanta mayor
Andrew Young, Augusta Mayor
Edward M. Mclntyre and a host of
“Morehouse men” who turned out
en masse. When the Morehouse
men were asked to stand, President
Carter also stood.
During his eulogy, Carter said,
“The most meaningful honorary
degree that I have ever received
was from Morehouse College. I
was glad to stand as one of the
Morehouse men.”
®fje Augusta Aems-iKeuieui
A i- wS
Dr. Benjamin E. Mays
Carter said that when he was
elected president, Dr. Mays told
him, “I’m glad to see a Morehouse
man finally made it to the White
House.” And then he added,
“You’re the first, but you won’t be
the last.”
Carter said Dr. Mays was “the
epitome of a Southern, Christian
gentleman, a monumental figure in
education and social justice. He in
spired all who knew him.
“I sought his advice often as
governor and when I was
president. I sought his advice
whenever I had a difficult question
on human rights, education or
social justice. His life will live in
the lives of those who were in
spired by him. I’m grateful for
him.”
Among those inspired by him
was the Morehouse Glee Club.
Singing the “Impossible Dream,”
led by tenor Oliver Sueing, the ap
plause was so great that the Glee
Club did an encore. The encore
was followed by a standing
ovation.
Throughout the celebration,
Atlantic City
gets first
Black mayor
Page 3
people seemed almost not to notice
the bronze casket covered with a
spray of red roses.
Dr. Samuel Dußois Cook,
president of Dillard University,
was the principal speaker.
He said that Dr. Mays’ life was
the “persistent pursuit of unat
tainable ideals. He had a love af
fair with the basic values of the
human enterprise.”
Cook said that Mays was the
voice of the voiceless, an inspirer,
motivator, and peerless spokesman
for Jesus Christ. Sometimes I
thought it was easier to please God
than to please him.”
He said that Mays died aspiring
to greater heights. He authored
seven books and was writing three
additional books when he died,
and always felt that his best book
had not yet been written.
“The truly great men of history
are those who dedicate their lives
to a worthy cause,” Cook said.
Mays, Cook said, felt that the
search for happiness was an un
worthy goal.
“Who am I to be happy when
my brother is starving,” Mays
would ask. “I’m no better than my
starving brother.
“Happiness, if it is to be found,
will be found in struggling and
toiling. If it is to be found, it will
be found in a job well done, and
the quest must be continuous.”
Cook told the audience, “We
must carry on the unfinished work
of Benjamin E. Mays. We must be
the keepers of the flame and the
keepers of the dream.”
Finally, he addressed the giants
of history: “Socrates, Plato,
Michelangelo, Leonardo DeVinci,
Ralph McGill, Martin Luther
King, Abraham Lincoln, Mary
McCleod Bethune,' Shakespeare,
John Hope—all the giants of
history—make room. Ben E. Mays
is coming.”
Howard University; Homer C. McEwen, retired pastor of
First Congregational Church; Hugh M. Gloster, president of
Morehouse College; and William V. Guy, pastor of Frien
dship Baptist Church. News Review staff photo
Reagan denied
Benjami
nation’s t*
Page 1 I
April 7,1984
Tributes
“His dedication enriched our
nation.”
—Ronald Reagan
It’s a long way from milking
a cow, pushing a plow, to get
ting a Phi Beta Kappa key and a
Ph. D. degree.
—Hugh Gloster, president of
Morehouse College
I came to say goodnight, but
not farewell to my best friend.
—Martin Luther King Sr.
In honor of Dr. Mays, there
is no need for any Black college
to close when we have yachts,
and planes, and estates.
—Benjamin Payton, president
of Tuskegee Institute
He was a rebel whose
rebellion cannot be allowed to
die.
—James Cheek, president of
Howard University
If I could, I would make his
autobiography, Born to Rebel,
required reading for all
Americans.
—Frank Reynolds, president of
Bates College
His concern was always for
the individual and the com
munity around him.
—Albert E. Manley, president
emeritus of Spelman College
He was remarkable in life,
remarkable in the twilight of
life, and remarkable in death.
—Cordelia J. Blount, Dr.
Mays’ niece, former dean of
women at Paine College
Denied top award
Last October, the House of
Representatives took the unusual
step of voting unanimously to ask
President Reagan to award Ben
jamin Mays the nation’s highest
civilian award, the Presidential
Medal of Freedom.
Rep. Wyche Fowler (D-Ga.),
one of the resolution’s sponsors,
says he kept calling the White
House, asking that Reagan include
Mays on the list of Medal of
Freedom recipients. But, for
reasons the White House will not
disclose, Reagan did not give Mays
the honor.
On Monday two days before
Mays’ death, a White House
ceremony awarded the medal to 14
others, none of whom had been
recommended by the House. Some
of the awards were posthumous.
from the Atlanta Constitution
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Marvin Gaye’s
death shocks
music world
Combined Reports
LOS ANGELES —Marvin
Gaye’s soulful music filled the air
waves as fans gathered Monday to
mourn his death, and a detective
said “we may never know” the
depth of the conflict between the
singer and his father, who is ac
cused of his murder.
Gaye, whose smooth and sexy
style dominated Motown records
during the 1960 s with such hits as
“I Heard It Through The
Grapevine,” was killed by two
bullets in the chest Sunday, the eve
of his 45th birthday.
His father, retired minister Mar
vin Gaye Sr., 69, was later booked
in connection with his son’s mur
der and was being held without
bail. Police said they expected that
he would be arraigned Wednesday.
The singer, who would have
celebrated his 45th birthday Mon
day, was taken by paramedics to
California Hospital Medical Cen
ter, shot twice in the chest. His
heart had stopped beating and
resuscitation attempts failed, a
hospital spokesman said. He was
Dr, Mays turned
Morehouse around
When Mays was hired as the
president of Morehouse in 1940, he
found a faltering all-male Black
college financially weakened by the
Depression and drained of much
of its student body by wartime em
ployment. He set about to reverse
the school’s fortunes. “It always
has been an obsession of mine to
build a school of academic ex
cellence,” he said later. “I worked
on the belief that a Black boy
could get anything if it were put
out there and he could compete for
it.”
Faculty members recalled that
he would instruct them at
meetings, “Whatever you do, do it
so well that anyone looking will
feel that the task was reserved
especially for you by God him
self.”
Mays labored from 1953 to 1966
until he was at last able to persuade
representatives of Phi Beta Kappa
to establish a chapter at
Morehouse. Today the school is
one of only three Black colleges in
the country with the academic
honorary society, and one of four
in Georgia, Black or white.
Martin Luther King Jr. was
among llth-grade students admit
ted to Morehouse under its early
admission program in September
1944. King and Mays met in
chapel. Thereafter King visited the
Mays home in Atlanta, and the two.
of them chatted often on campus
and in the president’s office.
“Many times he would linger af
ter my Tuesday address to discuss
some point I had made —usually
with approval, but sometimes
questioning or disagreeing,” Mays
recalled later. “There is no way
one can know the degree of in
fluence one has upon another. I
can only say that I am honored to
have had a small part in helping to
mold one of the noblest spirits of
declared dead at 1:01 p.m.
Gaye, considered by popular
music critics the peer of Stevie
Wonder and Smokey Robinson
among male rhythm-and-blues
stars, was shot in an argument with
thp elder Gaye at the home in the
2100 block of South Gramercy
Plq<;e, police said.
The elder Gaye was taken into
custody on the front lawn of his
horrte shortly after the shooting
and after several hours of
questioning was booked.
Police Lt. Bob Martin said the
singer became involved in a verbal
dispute with his father Saturday
night. The argument resumed
Sunday morning and about noon
there was “some pushing and
shoving” in an upstairs hallway,
Martin said.
At that point Gaye’s mother,
Alberta, 69, interceded in an effort
to stop the fight, the detective said.
Gaye Sr., a retired minister of
the House of God Church, sub
sequently armed himself with a
five-shot, .38-caliber handgun,
our time.”
King, in the book, “Stride
Toward Freedom,” identified
Mays as his “spiritual mentor.”
Activism began early
As early as 1942, Mays had filed
a discrimination suit against a
railroad for having installed a cur
tain separating Black and white
dining areas; the suit resulted in
the desegregation of dining cars on
Pullman trains. For the first time
Mays could eat with whites on
trains. “I had not known until that
moment just how much resentment
had grown in me,” he wrote later.
“As I sat there among the others, a
thought overwhelmed me, and I
almost wanted to say it out loud to
them: ‘I don’t hate you any
more.’”
Mays said he was not permitted
to vote in city and state elections
until he was 52-years-old. “For
thirty-one years after I was twenty
one years of age I could not vote in
any local, city and state elec
tions—despite the fact that I was a
college and university graduate
and a college president,” he wrote.
In January 1951, he sounded
another call, which became a
frequent theme of his. He told
American Baptist Convention
meeting in Buffalo, N.Y.: “In
both the North and the South, the
Christian church is the most highly
segregated institution in the United
States.”
At the dawn of the civil rights
movement, it was a Morehouse
student, Hamilton Holmes, who
became an integration pioneer. He
left the school in 1960 to enroll,
along with Atlantan Charlayne
Hunter, as the first Blacks at the
previously all-white University of
Georgia.
On March 14, 1960, a red-letter
day in the civil rights movement,
students came to Mays’ home to
inform him and seek his blessing
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