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Howard Thurman’s search for common ground
In 1953, Life magazine identified Baptist minister Howard Thurman (1900-1981), dean of Marsh Chapel from 1953 to 1965, as one of the 12 greatest preachers of the century.
In the 1935-36 school year, when he was a professor of religion at Howard University, he led the first African-American delegation to meet Mohandas Gandhi. Upon his return, he wrote the book Jesus and the Disinherited, which details Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolent resistance. When Thurman came to BU to become the first African-American to hold a deanship at a predominantly white university, he became a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59). In fact, King was often seen holding the book during the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycotts.
In 1940, Thurman left his job at Howard University to cofound the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, which had an interreligious and interracial congregation. When he came to BU in 1953, he brought his philosophy of interfaith worship and dialogue and was among the first preachers to conduct Christian services in a nontraditional way, drawing from such eastern religious faiths as Buddhism and Hinduism.
In accepting President Harold Case’s invitation to work at BU, he said, “At Boston University I will touch every step of the way hundreds of young people who themselves will be going to the ends of the earth to take up their responsibilities as members of communities. Conceivably this means the widest possible dissemination of the ideas in which I believe.”
Through his 21 books, numerous articles, sermons, and meditations, Thurman influenced a wide variety of audiences — and still does today.
Howard Thurman Center will dedicate new facility, honor BU civil rights figure
22
April 2005
Boston University
Office of University Relations