“It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy of life lies in having no goal to reach.” – Benjamin E. Mays

In the spring of 1988, the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Leadership was approved by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and established in the College of Education at Georgia State University. Its goal was and continues to be the improvement of the quality of educational institutions in urban areas of the country, with special emphasis on the problems faced by the leadership of large city school districts. The founding holder of the Chair, Dr. Alonzo A. Crim, initiated the organization and sponsorship of the annual Benjamin E. Mays Memorial Lecture Series. It began in 1989 with Dr. Charles V. Willie, a social scholar at Harvard University, and has continued to this past year’s lecturer, Dr. Jeannie Oakes. By continuing to bring nationally prominent educators to Atlanta, each symposium, conference and lecture encourages the discussion of issues facing urban educational leaders.

This program not only honors the memory of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays but also promotes his philosophy of educational excellence for those typically least served by society.

Joyce E. King holds the Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair of Teaching, Learning and Leadership at George State University. She is a professor of Educational Policy Studies and is an affiliated faculty member in the Department of African-American Studies.

Her research and scholarship discuss how mainstream American education produces dysconsciousness that resists a critically transformative understanding of race and racialized inequity. Education kindergarten through grade 16 perpetuates a curriculum that alienates peoples of color from seeing themselves as collaborative levels of knowledge and distorts White people’s humanity, as well.

Dr. King’s research notes that kindergarten through 12th-grade textbooks, lesson plans and teacher preparation routinely start the history of Black people in slavery, not in Africa, and teach that Egypt is located in the Middle East or even Asia rather than in Africa!

African American learners are taught they have contributed nothing to the production of knowledge, and that abandonment of all Black cultural identity is key to any success in school.

Her scholarship addresses a transformative role for culture in effective teaching and teacher preparation, Black Studies epistemology and curriculum theorizing, community-mediated research and dysconscious racism, a term she coined. Her scholarship emphasizes cultural well-being as a necessary goal in all successful education, including that of Whites who are miseducated, as well, by a competitive educational system that feeds them racially-constructed knowledge as color-blind education.

Her publications can be found in the Harvard Educational Review, The Journal of Negro Education, The Journal of Black Studies, Womanist Theory and Research, numerous book chapters as well as six books: Teaching Diverse Populations; Black Mothers to Sons: Juxtaposing African American Literature with Social Praxis; Preparing Teachers for Diversity and Black Education: A Transformative Research and Action Agenda for the New Century; Remembering History in Student and Teacher Learning: An African-centered Culturally Informed Praxis; and Dysconscious Racism, Afrocentric Praxis and Education for Human Freedom—Through the Years I Keep on Toiling—The Selected Works of Joyce E. King.

Previously, Dr. King has also served as Provost and Professor of Education at Spelman College, Associate Provost at Medgar Evers College in New York (CUNY), Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Diversity Programs at the University of New Orleans; Director of Teacher Education at Santa Clara University, and Head of the Department of Ethnic Studies, Mills College. Dr. King has international experience teaching, lecturing and providing professional development in Brazil (using Portuguese translations of her publications), Canada, China, England, Jamaica, New Zealand, Mali, Kenya, and Senegal. A recipient of the W.K. Kellogg Fellowship and the American Council on Education Fellowship, she also served on the California State Board of Education Curriculum Commission.

She holds the Ph.D. in the Social Foundations of Education and a B.A. Degree (with Honors), both from Stanford University, and a Certificate in Educational Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. King is the immediate past-President of the American Educational Research Association (2014-2015).

List of Guest Lecturers for The Benjamin E. Mays Memorial Lecture Series — Alonzo A. Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence

1989 Charles Willie, Social Scholar, Harvard University

1990 Samuel Cook, President, Dilliard University

1991 Samuel Proctor, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University

1992 Julius S. Scott, President, Paine College

1993 Lerone Bennett Jr., Executive Editor, Ebony Magazine

1994 Maynard H. Jackson, Mayor Emeritus of Atlanta

1995 Lisa Delpit, Benjamin Mays Chair for Urban Educational Leadership, Georgia State University

1996 Barbara Sizemore, Dean, College of Education, DePaul University

1997 Asa G. Hilliard, Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education, Georgia State University

1998 Robert Franklin, President, Interdenominational Theological Center

1999 Jackie Jordan-Irvine, Charles Chandler, Professor of Urban Education, Emory University

2000 Vincent Harding, Professor Illif College

2001 Johnetta Cole, President, Spelman College

2002 Beverly Tatum, President, Spelman College

2003 Gloria Ladson Billings, Professor, University of Wisconsin

2004 Joyce King, Benjamin Mays Chair for Urban Education, Georgia State University

2005 Beverly Hall, Superintendent, Atlanta Public Schools

2006 Ronald Ferguson, Economist, Harvard University

2007 Mark Alexander, Endocrinologist, Kaiser Permanente

2008 Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund

2009 Robert Moses, Founder of the Algebra Project

2010 Ela Gandhi, Durban University of Technology

2011 Vanessa Siddle Walker, Emory University

2012 Adelaide Sanford, Former Vice-Chancellor New York State Board of Regents

2013 Brian Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative

2014 Jeannie Oakes, Professor Emerita, UCLA, AERA President-Elect

2015 Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts Amherst

2016 Noma LeMoine, Chief Editorial Officer, LeMoine and Associates Educational Consulting

2019 Walter C. Farrell, Jr., University of Colorado-Boulder

The Mays Lecture will be held on Feb. 20 at 6:30 p.m. in Georgia State University’s Florence Kopleff Recital Hall (15 Gilmer St. SE, Atlanta).

Driving Directions

From the North: Take I-85/75 South to the Courtland Street exit (Exit 249A); turn right on Edgewood Avenue; go one block (Hurt Park is on the left); turn left onto Gilmer Street (a one-way street). The Florence Kopleff Recital Hall is located on your immediate right in the Arts and Humanities building (on the corner of Peachtree Center Avenue and Gilmer Street).

From the South: Take I-85/75 North to the Edgewood/Auburn Avenue exit (Exit 248B); turn left and continue straight on Edgewood. Go straight one block (Hurt Park is on the left). Turn left onto Gilmer Street (a one-way street). The Florence Kopleff Recital Hall is located on your immediate right in the Arts and Humanities building (on the corner of Peachtree Center Avenue and Gilmer Street).

Parking

Visitors can park in Georgia State University’s M Deck or G Deck for this event. More information on the decks’ locations and costs can be found on the university’s Visitor Parking webpage.

Public Transit Directions

Take MARTA’s North/South or the East/West line to the Five Points station. Exit toward Peachtree Street. After exiting the station, turn right onto Decatur Street. Go through the first traffic light (Park Place), and then turn left at the next light (Peachtree Center Avenue – at Walters’ clothing store). Stay on Peachtree Center Avenue to Gilmer Street (second light) and turn right. The entrance to Kopleff Recital Hall is immediately on your right.