Howard Thurman created much of the foundation for the civil rights movement. His
book, Jesus and the Disinherited influenced people including the Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr. Thurman taught fear, deception, and hatred prohibit a
peaceful end to racial bigotry. These emotions isolate people and only by
overwhelming such restraints with love can oppressed peoples surmount
persecution. His wisdom influenced leaders to include President John F. Kennedy.
Consider Thurman's words:
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what
makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world
needs is people who have come alive."
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Teach Peace Moment
- Howard Thurman
Did you ever wonder how Martin Luther King, Jr. learned about Mahatma Ghandi?
In 1936 Howard Thurman led a "Negro Delegation of Friendship" to visit Gandhi in India. When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to America, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible worldwide and suggested some American black man would succeed where he had failed. Gandhi's wish would come true when Howard Thurman subsequently taught a young man at Crozier Theological Seminary. That young man was Martin Luther, King Jr. and he was transformed from learning about Gandhi.
“Prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationship. The "turn the other cheek" philosophy and the "love your enemies" philosophy were only valid, I felt, when individuals were in conflict with other individuals; when racial groups and nations were in conflict a more realistic approach seemed necessary. But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was. Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.” My Pilgrimage to Non-Violence” The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Howard Thurman (1899-1981),
author, educator, civil rights leader, minister, philospher, and theologian
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what
makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world
needs is people who have come alive."
The messages of this true American hero are needed as much today as they were during his life.
"The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication, they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires." Howard Thurman, Footprints of a Dream
In 1923, Thurman graduated as valedictorian from Morehouse College. A little known fact is Martin Luther King, Sr. was Thurman's classmate and friend. Morehouse College. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1925. His first pastorate, at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio, was followed by a joint appointment as professor of religion and director of religious life at Morehouse and Spelman colleges in Atlanta, Georgia.
Rufus Jones, a Quaker mystic, directly influenced Thurman in 1929 at Haverford College. Jones, a pacifist leader, helped Thurmon on his journey towards a philosophy that stressed an activism rooted in faith, guided by spirit, and maintained in peace.
In 1928 he wrote his essay entitled "Peace Tactics and a Racial Minority." In 1936 his conversations with Gandhi broadened his theological and international vision. In 1949 , his book Jesus and the Disinherited, provided an interpretation of the New Testament gospels that laid the foundation for a nonviolent civil rights movement. Thurman presented the basic goal of Jesus' life as helping the disinherited of the world change from within so they would be empowered to survive in the face of oppression. A love rooted in the "deep river of faith," wrote Thurman, would help oppressed peoples overcome persecution. "It may twist and turn, fall back on itself and start again, stumble over an infinite series of hindering rocks, but at last the river must answer the call to the sea."
Hhurman was a remarkable leader. He was first black dean at Boston University and then the first dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University. Ebony magazine called him one of the 50 most important figures in African American history. Life magazine rated him among the 12 best preachers in the nation.
Howard Thurman, The Search For Common Ground; An Inquiry Into The Basis Of Man's Experience Of Community.
BOOKS BY HOWARD THURMAN
Other books include:
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION The first film about his life is due to be completed in 2008 (see http://howardthurmanfilm.com).
To hear Howard Thurman, click here. The following excerpts are from http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html provided additional insights on this amazing soul.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Thurman was raised in segregated Daytona, Florida. Schools there went only to the seventh grade, so Thurman's family scraped together the funds to send him to high school in Jacksonville. However, at the train station, Thurman was told he had to pay extra to send his baggage. Buying the ticket had left him destitute; he had no more to ship his trunk. Penniless, the boy sat down on the steps and began to cry. Then, a stranger - a black man dressed in overalls - walked by and paid the charges. He didn't introduce himself, and Thurman never learned his name. When Thurman wrote his autobiography, he dedicated it "to the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago."
THE STUDENT AND THE PACIFIST
While still a student, Thurman began working as a youth movement leader, mainly through the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). He graduated from Colgate-Rochester Theological Seminary in 1926 and began his first pastorate, at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio. At Oberlin, he encountered the work of Rufus Jones, a Quaker mystic and leader of the pacifist Interracial Fellowship of Reconciliation. Thurman eventually studied with Jones, and described this time as the watershed event of his life. However, Jones' focus was global, and Thurman thought local. "How can we manage the carking fear of the white man's power," he asked, "and not be defeated by our own rage and hatred?"
A MEETING WITH GANDHI
In 1935-36, Thurman led a delegation of African Americans to meet Mohandas Gandhi. God-given faith, Gandhi proclaimed, could be used to fight the oppression of white American segregation. He challenged Thurman to rethink the idea of Christianity as a religion used by whites to keep black "in their place" with images of a white Christ and ideas of a land of milk and honey in the great beyond. Hindu principles offered Indians a basis for nonviolent opposition to British power, he said. Did Christianity have a similar power to overcome white racism?
A THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION
Thurman continued thinking and writing about his conversation with Gandhi for the rest of his life. He passed on his thinking to James Farmer, founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman expounded on the idea of Jesus as a liberating figure, bringing new testament gospel together with non-violent resistance.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION
In 1944 Thurman left his position as dean at Howard University to co-found the first fully integrated, multi-cultural church in the U.S. in San Francisco, CA. The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples was a revolutionary idea. Founded on the ideal of diverse community with a focus on a common faith in God, Thurman brought people of every ethnic background together to worship and work for peace. "Do not be silent; there is no limit to the power that may be released through you." Click here for the lesson plan. For more information about this Teach Peace Moment of Leaders, contact us at contact@teachpeace.com or call 530-554-7061. |
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Thurman
was born in 1899 and raised in Daytona, Florida. His house at 614 Whitehall
Street is shown on the left. His mother worked as a domestic worker and his
grandmother, a former slave, served the primary parental role.
"In
the conflicts between man and man, between group and group, between nation and
nation, the loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable. The
radical tension between good and evil, as man sees it and feels it, does not
have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence. There
is a spirit in man and in the world working always against the thing that
destroys and lays waste. Always he must know that the contradictions of life are
not final or ultimate; he must distinguish between failure and a many-sided
awareness so that he will not mistake conformity for harmony, uniformity for
synthesis. He will know that for all men to be alike is the death of life in
man, and yet perceive harmony that transcends all diversities and in which
diversity finds its richness and significance." 
