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Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historic Preservation Site
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This historic site showcases Dr. Mays’ birth home, representative of a sharecropper’s homestead. A museum houses an extraordinary collection of memorabilia from Mays’ life.
Save to Your ItineraryDr. Benjamin E. Mays Historic Preservation Site
About
The Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Site honors the extraordinary life of a Civil Rights legend. The son of former slaves, Mays was the intellectual father of the American Civil Rights movement, focusing on nonviolence and civil resistance. As president of Morehouse College, he taught and mentored many leaders of the Civil Rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr., Julian Bond and Maynard Jackson, and served as advisor to three U.S. presidents.
The Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site has been established on the campus of GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission which is located in the old African-American Brewer Hospital before desegregation. The site, adjacent to and part of the old Brewer School which has its origins back to 1872, was chosen because of its historical significance. Dr. Mays’ birth home, previously listed as one of South Carolina’s Eleven Most Endangered Properties, was originally located in a pasture in SE Greenwood County in the community of Epworth. In 2004, the SC Palmetto Conservation Foundation purchased the home from the owners and moved it to its current site. Extensive repairs had to be made to the building because of its dilapidated condition.
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