To Benjamin Elijah Mays
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: August 1, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Details
King accepts Mays’s request to teach a social philosophy seminar at Morehouse College during the 1961–1962 school year.1
Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, President
Morehouse College
Atlanta, Georgia
Dear Dr. Mays:
After giving your offer serious and prayerful consideration, I have decided to do thesseminar on Social Philosophy at Morehouse College beginning in September, 1961, and extending through May, 1962.2 The salary of $1500.00 is quite agreeable with me.
I am assuming that the seminar will be held on Tuesdays. As I said to you, there are about four long standing commitments that I have on Tuesday which I will find difficult to cancel.3 With the exception of that, and the possibility of some unforeseen development which we discussed, I will be available every Tuesday.
Sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
1. Mays’s request, which was marked “Strictly Confidential,” asked King not to discuss the salary with anyone other than his wife (Mays to King, 20 July 1961). The seminar, which King co-taught with Morehouse professor Samuel W. Williams, covered a variety of classical philosophers such as John Locke, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Karl Marx, but also included a section examining nonviolence through the works of Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and Mahatma Gandhi (King, “Outline of Lecture in Social Philosophy,” 3 October 1961, and King, Notes, Seminar in Social Philosophy, 3 October 1961–23 January 1962, pp. 288–291 and 291–304 in this volume, respectively; King, “What Is justice,” Lecture outline, 3 October 1961–23 January 1962; and King, Notes for seminar in Social Philosophy, October 1961–May 1962).
2. King fulfilled his agreement but decided not to teach another year (see King to Mays, 6 September 1962).
3. King’s calendar indicated engagements in Philadelphia on 24 October 1961; Hot Springs, Arkansas, on 23 January 1962; New York on 20 March 1962; Virginia on 27 March 1962; Denver on 17 April 1962; and Chattanooga on 15 May 1962 (King, “National Diary, 1961–1962,” 1 January 1961–27 December 1962).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.