Benjamin Elijah Mays (August 1, 1894 - March 28, 1984); American educator and Baptist minister

Benjamin Mays was the son of Hezekiah and Louvenia Carter Mays, both former slaves. After attending Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia, he transferred to Bates College in Maine, earning a bachelor's degree in 1920. 

The following year he became ordained a Baptist minister. He then attended the University of Chicago's Divinity School, earning a master's degree in 1925 and a Ph.D. ten years later.

 In 1934 Mays assumed the deanship of Howard University's school of religion where he revitalized a moribund program. In six years under Mays' administration, enrollment increased, the quality of the faculty improved, and the library grew. In 
addition, the school achieved the American Association of Theological Schools' highest rating.

In 1950 Mays became the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, serving in that position until 1967. Although he enhanced the quality of the faculty and the campus at Morehouse, Mays valued even more his relationship with students, particularly with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who attended Morehouse from 1944 to 1948. 

Mays and King developed an almost father and son relationship. King later said that Mays was his "spiritual mentor and my intellectual father." Mays had encouraged King's civil rights activities, although critics attacked Mays' moderate views and his denunciation of such organizations as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

In addition to his work in black higher education, Mays was a scholar of the Black Church, and together with Joseph W. Nicholson, authored a survey of the Black Church in twelve cities, The Negro's Church (1933). In 1938 he published a study of how God figured in the lives of blacks, The Negro's God as Reflected in His Literature. Mays was also active in the National Baptist Convention, and participated in a number of ecumenical groups, including the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. Mays worked with these groups to facilitate interracial understanding and to promote a more active commitment to racial justice on the part of Christian churches.

After retiring from Morehouse in 1967, Mays was elected to the Atlanta Board of Education, becoming its president in 1970. 

In 1982, in recognition for his life of service to the African American community, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People awarded Mays its highest honor, the Spingarn Medal. Mays died in Atlanta in 1984.