Los Angeles Promenade of Prominence

“Walk of Fame” 1988 — a Legacy of the Heart

James A. Mays, MD, deserves the recognition a CNN Hero, because he is a unique medical doctor and person in providing medical of the body while giving hope as a role and motivator to the citizens of Los Angeles, especially its youth. He is called the Dr. Welby of the ghetto. He has been named the Doctor of the year in Los Angeles and Watts. He is a 1965 graduate of the University of Arkansas and was named Alumnus of the Year, Community Affairs, in 1993. His community education on high blood pressure resulted in an editorial written by him in the Los Angeles Times titled Salt and Soul Food revolutionized thinking on ethnic foods transfer as a etiology for heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity; he awakened the nation during his national medical speaking engagements and appearance in the national media, picture, and print. He traveled the nation, speaking, while serving as the chief of cardiology as a young thirty-one-year-old physician at the new Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles from 19721976. His nocturnal AIDS education walks and education to street corners and motels, educating prostitutes, street people, and youth (1980 to present)are noteworthy. He cofounded the United High Blood Pressure Foundation and presented the first of a series of telethons. He later became chancellor of the Technical Health Career schools (19801985) while in private practice as a primary care physician with three medical offices in South Los Angeles for thirty-five years to the present.