Sadie Gray Mays

Sadie Gray Mays (August 5, 1900 – October 10, 1969) was an African-American social worker, trained at the University of Chicago. As the wife of Benjamin Mays, she was also a prominent Baptist minister's wife, a college president's wife (at Morehouse College, from 1940 to 1967), and a civil rights activist.

Sadie Gray Mays
Sadie Gray Mays, from a 1924 publication.
Born
Sadie M. Gray

August 5, 1900
Gray, Jones County, Georgia
DiedOctober 10 1969
Atlanta, Georgia
NationalityAmerican
Occupationsocial worker
Years active1930s-1960s
Known forSadie G. Mays Health and Rehabilitation Center in Atlanta

Early life

Sadie M. Gray was born in Gray, Georgia, the daughter of James Seaman Gray and Emma Frances Blount Gray.[1] Her father was a farmer who was born in slavery, understood to be the son of James Madison Gray, a prominent white landowner in Jones County, Georgia and the namesake of Gray, Georgia.[2][3] She had four older brothers and four older sisters. Her brother Madison and her sister Emma became professors at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia; her brother Emory became a dentist.[4]

Sadie M. Gray attended Paine College, and earned a bachelor's degree (1924) and a master's degree (1931), both from the University of Chicago's Department of Social Service Administration.[5]

Career

In the 1920s she taught at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. She later taught at the Atlanta University School of Social Work.[5] She was a social worker for the Georgia Study of Negro Child Welfare in Atlanta, and for the National Urban League in Tampa, Florida.[4][6] In the 1930s, while her husband was a dean at Howard University, she was a social worker at the National Youth Administration.[1][2] She also taught at Howard University and at Spelman College.[1] She was a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and a life member of the NAACP.[7][8][9]

Sadie Gray Mays frequently lectured on social topics.[10] In 1943, she and her husband were speakers at the Institute on Socio-Religious Affairs, held in Augusta, Georgia. Her talk included a discussion of sexism and internalized misogyny: "Men ask women to do more work for less pay. Men see to it that women do not get jobs unless there is no man available or the work deals entirely with women. Women have been in this inferior position so long they tend to accept it. Some even have a technique of trying to make men feel superior. Many refuse to reach heights that they could because they fear men will not approve."[2]

In 1947 she helped to establish and was first president of the Atlanta Association for Convalescent Aged Persons, a non-profit organization created to open Happy Haven, a nursing home for elderly black residents of the city.[11]

Personal life and legacy

Sadie M. Gray married Baptist minister and academic Benjamin E. Mays in 1926. He was president of Morehouse College from 1940 to 1967. She died in 1969, aged 69 years, in Atlanta. She lived at Happy Haven in her last months,[12] and the nursing home was renamed the Sadie G. Mays Memorial Nursing Home (now the Sadie G. Mays Health and Rehabilitation Center) in her memory.[11][13] The Mayses share a memorial on the campus of Morehouse College.[14] The Benjamin E. Mays Papers are archived at Howard University, and include much personal correspondence of Sadie Gray Mays.[15] In 2010, actress Veronica Byrd presented a program called "Sweet Sadie: The Life and Times of Sadie Gray Mays" in Atlanta for Black History Month.[16]

References
  1. Thomas Yenser, ed., Who's who in Colored America (Yenser 1942): 362.
  2. Barbara Dianne Savage, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Harvard University Press 2008): 214-216. ISBN 9780674031777
  3. James Madison Gray historical marker, Georgia Historical Society.
  4. Benjamin E. Mays, Born to Rebel: An Autobiography (University of Georgia Press 2011): 30-32, 105, 114-115, 125-126. ISBN 9780820342276
  5. Sadie Gray Mays, ca. 1931, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
  6. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds., African American Lives (Oxford University Press 2004): 572. ISBN 9780199882861
  7. "New Portrait for Morehouse" The Atlanta Constitution (June 26, 1970): 27. via Newspapers.com
  8. "Funeral Notices: Sadie Gray Mays" The Atlanta Constitution (October 14, 1969): . via Newspapers.com
  9. Kimberley Phillips Boehm, War! What Is It Good For?: Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq (University of North Carolina Press 2012): 236. ISBN 9780807869086
  10. Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Speaks: Representative Speeches of a Great American Orator (University Press of America 2002): 9-10. ISBN 9780761823438
  11. Our Unique Story, Sadie G. Mays Health and Rehabilitation Center website.
  12. Randal Maurice Jelks, Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography (University of North Carolina Press 2012): 238. ISBN 9780807869871
  13. Roz Edward, "Sadie G. May Center Celebrates 70 Years" Atlanta Daily World (May 28, 2017).
  14. Benjamin E. Mays and Sadie Gray Mays Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, Morehouse College.
  15. JoEllen ElBashir, curator, Benjamin Mays Papers finding aid, Howard University Library Manuscript Division.
  16. Shelia M. Poole, "Black History Event Honors Sadie G. Mays" The Atlanta Constitution (February 18, 2010): B3. via Newspapers.com
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