Quote of the Day (Benjamin Mays, on Why Jesus Called the Rich Man a Fool)

“No man makes himself. We owe our lives to God and to our parents. No man can succeed alone without the people. A businessman depends on the people who buy. If he accumulates great profit, in a large measure the people are responsible for his profit. A student cannot be educated without others. The student must be taught. Someone else writes the books. Someone else builds the buildings. Someone else gives the endowment. Often somebody else pays the bills….No man can succeed alone. No man is self-made. No man can lift himself by his own bootstraps.”—Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, “Why Jesus Called the Rich Man a Fool,” delivered at the University of Chicago on March 11, 1962, included in Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Speaks: Representative Speeches of a Great American Orator, edited by Freddie C. Colston (2002)

Theologian Gary Dorrien’s Thursday lecture at the Chautauqua Institution examined the life of Benjamin Elijah Mays, one of the early 20th-century African-American ministers who have now faded into history but who should be better known, particularly for their influence on the career of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (When King was attending Morehouse College, he listened attentively to the sermons of Mays, who was president of the school at the time.)

You can hear some of Mays’ cadences—and the same passion for social justice—in the words of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. That message still resonates, as became evident to me when one of the visitors at the inn where I stayed recited the above quote practically verbatim when recounting the lecture later.