Speaker. He graduated with departmental honors with a B.A. in 1920. Contrary to popular writing and official college records, Mays never received Phi Beta Kappa; his attendance of a "high school school from the South" disqualified him. Marriages Shortly after graduation, he married his first wife, Ellen Edith Harvin, in August 1920 in Newport News, Virginia. The two met when Mays was still in South Carolina and wrote to each other frequently. She was a home economics teacher at a local college before she died after a brief illness two years after they married at age 28. He met his second wife, Sadie Gray, while working at South Carolina State College. After months of courtship, they married on August 9, 1926. Mays kept private the details of his relationship with his second wife; he burned the majority of letters and correspondence between them. Early academic career On January 3, 1921, he then entered the University of Chicago as a graduate student, earning an M.A. in 1925. Early on in his academic career he decided to join Omega Psi Phi, a national fraternity for colored men. This organization was known for pooling resources and information among its members so Mays viewed it with great interest. Mays viewed it as "a mountain top from which he could see above and beyond". In 1924, upon hearing news that there was to be a fraternity meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, Mays traveled by train. However, his decision to travel first class from Birmingham to St. Louis was indirectly against the Jim Crow laws. The ticket salesman only sold Mays a ticket when he lied about who it was for. While riding to St. Louis, the Pullman warned Mays that he was risking his life by sitting in first class and that he should get off at the next stop. Shortly after, three white men, guns drawn, escorted Mays into a car in the back known as the "Jim Crow car". He eventually made it to the Omega Psi Phi meeting, where he spoke of his experience. To finance his time in university, Mays worked as a Pullman Porter, a railway assistant. Much of the money he had earned growing up was spent financing his time at Bates, on Christmas Day 1921, Mays held only 45 dollars (). Mays began labor organizing to increase his wage, which was seen negatively by the Porter managers. Although