Bernard Mayes

Anthony Bernard Duncan Mayes (October 10, 1929 – October 23, 2014) was a British broadcaster, university dean and author who founded America's first suicide prevention hotline.

Biography

After studying classical civilizations at Cambridge University, Mayes worked first as a school teacher of Latin, Greek and history. He was then ordained as an Anglican priest. Mayes emigrated to the United States in 1958 and became an Episcopal worker-priest and director of a student house attached to Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village and New York University. He then moved to the Diocese of California where he held a parish near San Francisco. While in San Francisco, Mayes founded San Francisco Suicide Prevention, later used as a model throughout the United States. Openly gay himself, Mayes organized a sexuality study center for the Episcopal Diocese of California. This ministry, originally known as the Parsonage, was awarded the Episcopal Jubilee citation and later evolved into the present-day Oasis organization. In 1992 he abandoned religion and became an atheist. In 2012, despite his atheism he was later honored by the San Francisco Night Ministry and both the California Assembly and Senate for his public service.