Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation

To Benjamin Elijah Mays

Main content start

Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Dexter Avenue Baptist Church)

Date: November 24, 1954

Location: Montgomery, Ala.?

Genre: Letter

Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry

Details

King responds to Mays’s request for contributions to Morehouse College.

Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, President
Morehouse College
Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Dr. Mays:

This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of November 4, 1954. Absence from the city for some two weeks has delayed my reply.

I assure you that I am in sympathy with the great need at Morehouse for a Physical Education and Health building, and you can expect my full cooperation in contributing toward its construction. It might interest you to know that in making out the budget for the church year 1954–55, I included $200 for Morehouse College and $50 for the School of Religion. All of the items in this budget were unanimously accepted by the church.1

I will do my bery best to issue the check for $200 to Morehouse by Founder’s Day.

We are very happy that you will be able to serve as our Men’s Day speaker next July. I will keep you informed as things develop concerning it.

With every good wish, I am

Sincerely yours,
M. L. King, Jr.

MLK/csk

1. The contribution was one-third of the budget for Dexter’s Ministry of Christian Education and Missions. See King, “Annual Report, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,” 1 October 1954–31 October 1955, MLKP-MBU.

Source: MLKP, MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.

© Copyright Information