Benjamin Brawley

Teaching was his “sacred calling.” He tried his hand at preaching but soon realized his skills were best served by providing young African Americans with the best education possible. Benjamin Griffith Brawley (1882-1939) showed early academic prowess, mastering Latin at twelve and Greek two years later. He entered Atlanta Baptist College (later renamed Morehouse College) at thirteen, only to discover that not everyone was as well versed in Shakespeare and ancient languages. He tutored much older students and launched a student journal. He was also quarterback and captain of the football team. His first teaching assignment was at a one-room school in Florida. No sooner had he signed the contract than another school offered him a more lucrative teaching position. He declined the offer, deciding not to begin his teaching career by breaking a contract. He returned to Morehouse College to teach English and excelled in the classroom. His driving ambition was “to teach them in the knowledge of the truth…to have self-respect without arrogance and chivalry without pride…to have faith, even if they see wrong all around them…This is the highest task God can give to a mortal. It calls for the most unselfish service that any patriot can render to his country.” One biographer described him as a “Christian idealist.” His optimism for the future of African Americans is expressed through his writings and poetry. “The Negro asks of America not alms but opportunity,” he wrote. One graduating student lamented the dearth of good material on African American history and culture and pleaded with Professor Brawley to address the problem. Benjamin obliged by producing A Social History of the American Negro, which became a standard textbook in the early twentieth century. His comment on the reluctance of the Christian church to confront race relations is worth pondering, “One might have supposed that on all this proscription and denial of ordinary rights of human beings, the Christian church would have taken a positive stand. Unfortunately, as it so often happens, it was on the side of property and vested interest rather than on the side of the oppressed.” He wrote “A Prayer” as a student at Morehouse, which he included in his student journal. He was only seventeen when he composed it! Take time with this prayer and appropriate it to circumstances relevant to our day: