Benjamin E. Mays

Morehouse College class of 1948, under the leadership of Benjamin E. Mays. Bottom row second from left is Martin Luther King Jr. Top row, third from left is Samuel DuBois Cook. Book jacket.

Samuel DuBois Cook, editor, was a classmate of Martin Luther King Jr. at Morehouse College, where both received inspiration and challenge from Benjamin E. Mays. After obtaining his PHD at Ohio State University, Cook taught at Southern University, Atlanta University, UCLA, and University of Illinois. Cook has the distinction of being the first African American professor at Duke University and the first to hold a full faculty position at any predominantly white college or university in the South. He is now president emeritus of Dillard University in New Orleans. Cook's moral leadership has been recognized by the wider community in his being named to the National Council on the Humanities by President Jimmy Carter and to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council by President Bill Clinton. Cook also received the Weiss Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews for intercultural leadership. He is the author of many published essays and the editor of Black-Jewish Relations. He lives in Atlanta with his wife of almost fifty years, Sylvia.