Georgia State University to Host 36th Annual Benjamin E. Mays Lecture on Feb. 20

ATLANTA—Georgia State University’s Alonzo A. Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence will host its 36^th Annual Benjamin E. Mays Lecture on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. in the university’s Centennial Hall Auditorium (100 Auburn Ave. NE, Atlanta).

Joyce King, the Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair of Teaching, Learning and Leadership, will moderate a conversation on the theme "Education as Liberation" between the Mays Lecture’s two featured speakers: Gloria Swindler Boutte, a Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina, and Marvin Dunn, founder and president of the Miami Center for Racial Justice.

A reception will be held from 4:30-5:30 p.m. and a book signing will be held after the lecture.

Boutte has presented nationally and internationally on equity issues and has received several prestigious awards, such as the National Council of Teachers of English Outstanding Educator in the English Language Arts – Elementary Section and the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Division K Legacy Award. She is a Fulbright Scholar, a Fulbright Specialist and an AERA Fellow, and she is the founder and executive director of the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students. Boutte has served as a visiting scholar and presented her work internationally on every continent except Antarctica.

Dunn is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University, where he retired as department chair in 2006. He has published numerous articles on race and ethnic relations in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Orlando Sentinel, the Miami Herald and other publications. He served his country and retired as a naval officer. Dunn is the author of "The History of Florida: Through Black Eyes" and "Black Miami in the Twentieth Century," among other books, and he has produced four documentaries.

“I am very grateful that this year’s 36th Annual Mays Lecture will give us an opportunity to come together to engage with two outstanding professors whose teaching and scholarship embody the kind of intellectual courage that Dr. Benjamin Mays demonstrated in his life and work,” King said.

Benjamin E. Mays was a minister, educator, sociologist, social activist and president of Morehouse College in Atlanta from 1940 to 1967. He also was president of the Atlanta Public Schools Board of Education and supervised the desegregation of Atlanta’s public schools. The annual Benjamin E. Mays Lecture is intended to encourage the discussion of issues facing urban educational leaders, as well as honor the memory of Dr. Mays and promote his philosophy of excellence in the education of those typically least well served by the larger society.

The Southern Education Foundation is a partner for this year's lecture.

To RSVP to attend, visit https://bit.ly/MaysLecture2025RSVP.

For more information about the lecture, visit https://bit.ly/MaysLecture.