p.113, BENJAMIN ELIJAH MAYS:
SCHOOLMASTER OF THE MOVEMENT, A BIOGRAPHY, by Randal Maurice Jelks
(University of North Carolina Press: 2012)
“In his 1927 inaugural presidential
address [Rev. Mordecai Wyatt] Johnson highlighted the significant
role of religion in the lives of black people; he especially
highlighted the role of churches. 'There are 47,000 Negro churches in
the United States, and there are in the whole country less than sixty
college graduates getting ready to fill these pulpits,' he reflected.
' There is no organization and no combination of organizations that
can, at this stage in the history of the Negro race, begin to compare
with the fundamental importance of the Negro church. And yet we can
see what is going to happen to that church if only sixty college men
are preparing to enter the Negro pulpit.' He had reached the same
conclusion that [Benjamin Elijah] Mays had reached about the
education of the black clergy: 'The simple, unsophisticated, mystical
religion of the Negro cannot continue to endure unless it is
reinterpreted over and over to him by men who have a fundamental and
far-reaching understanding of the significance of religion in
relation to the complexities of modern civilized life.' He further
underscored the university's role in addressing issues germane to
black Protestant churches and religion: 'Here at Howard University we
have the ground work laid for a great nonsectarian school of
religion.' The purpose of the graduate school of religion, he
continued, would be to seek 'the truth about the meaning of life
without bias, endeavoring to deliver the people from superstition and
from uncharitable sectarianism, binding them into an understandable
cooperation, clarifying their vision, and releasing their energies
for constructive service to the common good.”
