Attorney & Author James C Mays Graces Cover of Game Changers Magazine 2025 Spring Edition

“It feels really good. Particularly when I went back to work here in Henry County. I took a job with the juvenile court. I was representing parents who were about to have their children taken away from them. My job was to try and defend those parents so that they could keep those children. One judge told me one time I was too passionate about this, but I was serious about that. It meant a lot to me because I know what it means for a child to be with their parents.”

Written by Chilton Stewart

Congratulations to Attorney James C. Mays, Esq. who just completed his first fifty years as a member of the Georgia Bar! With his energy, passion and commitment to his community, Attorney Mays feels capable of serving for another fifty years.

Attorney Mays has been, and remains, a treasured leader in the community…every community of which he's been a part. This is by no means a reflection of his ego or vanity. Rather, this is the shared view of everyone who interacts with this humble servant always looking to create positive impact.

Spend any time with Attorney Mays and it becomes clear he has a calling to serve and enlighten. One would have to in order to practice law in the state of Georgia for over fifty years. “I am feeling really good. I tell you it's really an amazing thing that I’ve been able to last fifty years in the state of Georgia as an attorney."

Attorney.Mays’ amazing journey first brought him to Georgia as an Air Force veteran pursuing a college degree at Clark College ((later becoming Clark Atlanta University), and then a second time following retirement from one of the world's largest fashion companies based in St. Louis, Missouri.  At the time of his retirement, he was only seeking greener pastures to play golf, not continuing his practice as an attorney. “My wife and I moved down here from St. Louis 19 years ago and we were looking around in the Atlanta area for a place where we could settle. I wanted to play golf at that time. We found Heron Bay Golf and Country Club in Henry County. People were moving in [the neighborhood] in droves at that time. So, we’ve been here 19 years, and we know quite a few people. Over that period of time, we’ve tried to stay busy and remain involved with the community, and to let people know that we are here if we can help in any way. I had not intended to continue to practice law once I retired, but once I got here and my neighbors found out that I was a lawyer, they started asking me to do various legal work for them and it just led one thing to another until I just decided to open my practice again.”

What is even more impressive is the fact that the year before Attorney Mays passed and was admitted to the Georgia Bar, no Black attorneys were admitted. “I finished law school at the University of Iowa in 1972 and moved back to Atlanta as a professor at Clark. I did not take the Bar in 1973, but a group of other Black people did and not one Black person in the state of Georgia passed the Georgia Bar. As a result of that, some people decided to bring a lawsuit because they thought there had been some kind of trickery, some kind of racial discrimination against Black candidates. So, in 1974 when I took the Bar, I think about 20 of us passed. There was a really nice article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution with a big picture of the group of us who passed the Bar that year.”

As with many things in Attorney Mays’ life, both fate and faith brought him to the places he enriched the most. This explains his journey to Clark College. “I was in the Air Force in the 60’s and as I was getting out of the Air Force I was looking around for a college to attend. It was in July of 1965. I approached Howard University who said, 'Mr. Mays we can accept you, but we can’t accept you in September it's too late, but you can come in January.' And I said to myself, 'No, I know me. If I put this off until January, I’m probably going to get a job and I would never go to college.' So, on my way home to Gary, Indiana I was in Chicago, and I was passing Michigan Avenue which is a huge street in Chicago. I crossed the street at the stoplight, and I had my duffel bag on my shoulder, and somebody yelled 'Jim!' I looked up and here was a friend of mine who I had gone to high school with, and he said, 'Where are you going?' I told him that I am going over to Gary. He said, 'Get in, I'm getting ready to go to Gary.'  So, we started talking and I asked, 'What have you been doing for the last four years?' He said 'I’ve been down in Atlanta at Clark College. What have you been doing?' I said 'Well, I have been trying to get into college.' He replied, 'Look man, I am going to call down there and I’m going to talk with them to get you in this Fall, you don’t have to worry about it.' He was the only football All-American to ever go to Clark. As a result of his influence, he got me into Clark that Fall. I ended up coming to Atlanta rather than Washington DC or some other place.”

Although his parents are originally from Georgia, Attorney Mays grew up in Indiana. While in the military he spent four years in Massachusetts which he considered a very liberal place. In fact, he said he felt it was politically the opposite extreme from Georgia. And so, ultimately landing in Georgia after spending time in Massachusetts, he didn’t know what to expect. "Dr. King was here in Atlanta at the time of my arrival and very involved. Things were very hot. When I came down, I quickly got involved in the movement. We at Clark formed our own Black Student organization called 'Pride.' People Ready In Defense of Ebony. We produced our own magazine at Clark called “Your Momma is Black” We produced our own newspaper every week. At that time the campus newspaper, the student newspaper, was only published once every two months. We had more to say, we had things that we thought we could communicate better than the regular Clark newspaper. We thought it was much too conservative and wasn’t pushing for the ideas that we had. We formed a Black organization for the four or five Black colleges in the Atlanta University Center, and I became the Chairman of the Black student organization at Clark College as well as the Chairman of the Atlanta University Center-wide Black student organization which included Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, Atlanta University and Clark College. I was the Chairman of both of those organizations. In my senior year I was elected President of the Clark student body. So, at one time I was President of the student body, President of Pride, President of the Atlanta University Center-wide Black student organization and President of the Panhellenic Council at Clark.”

One would think that would be enough to fill their free time while studying in school, but Attorney Mays and friends accomplished even more. “We started a student bank at Clark because there were so many kids who didn’t have any money they couldn’t go out on weekends, they couldn’t get something to eat, and they couldn’t afford to go to the football game or whatever it was. We came up with this idea: let's form a bank. We formed our own bank and elected a President of the bank, ran it out of the student union so that students could go in and borrow money. We asked certain professors if they would give us the money to [provide capital]. There were professors who gave us $50 or $100 whatever they had, and we literally ran a bank out of the student union.”

Attorney & Author James C. Mays shared stories of real, competent, inspirational militancy that performed good works for the community. In other words, he put his actions where his mouth was by displaying actual leadership and not just the “lip service” so many others gave back then and today. “We were trying to create new terms, new words which speak to the issues that maybe a lot of other students hadn’t thought about, that hadn’t reached that level yet. So, when that level of organization came about we could see a real change in the university.”

The story of how he became a lawyer is as fascinating as his undergraduate experience.  Having multiple options to consider, Attorney Mays elected to attend the University of Iowa Law School in Iowa City, Iowa. “I happened to be making a speech as the President of the student body at Clark and one day the Bishop of a Methodist church [in Iowa] happened to be in the City of Atlanta and came over to Clark, heard me speak and when he went back to Iowa told [University officials] 'Hey, there’s a guy in Atlanta I want you to offer a full scholarship to the law school.' So, they wrote to me and asked me if I would accept a full scholarship.”

Today, as a member of the Georgia Bar for over 50 years, Attorney Mays can see the fruits of his hard labor in helping other Georgians get fair and equitable justice. “It feels really good. Particularly when I went back to work here in Henry County. I took a job with the juvenile court. I was representing parents who were about to have their children taken away from them. My job was to try and defend those parents so that they could keep those children. One judge told me one time I was too passionate about this, but I was serious about that. It meant a lot to me because I know what it means for a child to be with their parents.”

It cannot be overstated, the life and contributions of Attorney James C. Mays, Esq. make him an extraordinary leader and an exemplary citizen of the state of Georgia.

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