Humble beginnings
The Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site features the restored cabin where the famous educator and Civil Rights champion was raised, a restored one-room schoolhouse and a modern interpretive center.
Photo by Diane Veto Parham
Loy Sartin had driven past the deteriorating childhood home of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays long before it was transformed into a museum. He’d read the historical marker beside the dilapidated, century-old cabin in Greenwood County’s rural Epworth community and was amazed.
From this humble cabin came one of South Carolina’s most accomplished native sons.
The child born here overcame every obstacle to pursue his dream of education and became the highly respected president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he inspired young Martin Luther King Jr.’s dreams. The African-American boy who experienced racial oppression here grew into a powerful orator who spoke boldly for equality among the races and became an advisor to U.S. presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Carter.
“I couldn’t believe a presidential adviser came from that,” says Sartin, now a Mays expert who cares for the restored home as curator of the Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site.
In 2004, the rustic, wood cabin Mays grew up in was rescued and moved to Greenwood through the efforts of Palmetto Conservation Foundation and a coalition of community leaders. The three parts of the Mays site—his cabin, an old schoolhouse and a new interpretive center—together tell Mays’ remarkable story.
Benjamin Elijah Mays was born in 1894 to a family of African-American tenant farmers. Despite humble beginnings, he became a world-renowned minister and educator, a father of the Civil Rights movement, influencing generations of Morehouse men who became doctors, judges, ministers and political leaders.
“When you talk to some of his former students, it borders on reverence,” Sartin says.
At his death in 1984, Mays was eulogized by Morehouse alumnus Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook as “prophet, scholar, educator; apostle of social justice, champion of human excellence, author, humanitarian; teacher, voice of the voiceless; … inspirer, motivator, and transformer of youth.”
Extensive repairs, including a roof replacement, helped ready the Mays house for tours after it was relocated. In 2010, Sartin volunteered to oversee the tasks of furnishing the old house, collecting artifacts and photos for exhibits, and creating a meaningful experience of Mays’ world for busloads of visitors from around the country.
Visitors can stroll through the two-bedroom cabin, furnished in homespun antiques that mimic Mays’ rural beginnings when he shared this space with nine family members. The backyard, too, depicts a farm family’s life in the early 1900s—wooden outhouse and water well, small cotton patch and vegetable garden, a tire swing, a clothesline, and a steel washtub.
An original, one-room, 19th-century schoolhouse for African-American children from the Epworth community on site is similar to the one Mays attended. Inside, a woodstove is surrounded by desks and primers for schoolchildren, with assignments written on the chalkboard.
The interpretive center showcases such an impressive array of photos of Mays alongside world leaders and celebrities that “people are just taken aback,” Sartin says. The walls display Mays’ inspirational quotes, excerpts from his autobiography, and an amazing listing of Mays’ three earned degrees plus his 56 honorary doctorates, awarded by institutions across the U.S. and in Africa.
“The most important thing we have is an original, reel-to-reel recording of seven of his speeches—six sermons and his eulogy for Dr. King,” Sartin says, so visitors can hear Mays’ eloquence firsthand.
“He was a monumental figure in American history,” Sartin says.
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Get There
The Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site is located at 229 North Hospital St., Greenwood.
Hours: The museum site is open from 9 a.m. to noon on Mondays and Tuesdays; 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays. Closed on holidays. Open for group tours and other visits by appointment.
Admission: Free
Details: (864) 229-8801; mayshousemuseum.org