The Project

Founded in 1992, the mission of the Howard Thurman Papers Project is to preserve and promote Thurman’s vast documentary record, which spans 63 years and consists of approximately 58,000 items of correspondence, sermons, unpublished writings, and speeches. To achieve this mission, the Project has four goals: 1) the publication of a multi-volume documentary edition of Thurman’s works; 2) creating an online database of Thurman’s papers that will be accessible to scholars and the general public; 3) conducting interviews (as part of an oral history project) of Thurman’s colleagues, close associates, and public figures who have been influenced by his work; and 4) creating public education programs about Thurman’s legacy, particularly as it relates to spirituality, ethics, and leadership.

The Howard Thurman Papers Project is funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Senior Editor/Director of the Howard Thurman Papers Project is Walter Earl Fluker. Dr. Fluker is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership at Boston University School of Theology. He is the author of the seminal work, They Looked for a City: A Comparative Analysis of the Ideal of Community in the Thought of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1989) and other books and critical essays on Howard Thurman.

The Managing Editor/Assistant Director of the Howard Thurman Papers Project is Silvia P. Glick, a doctoral candidate at the Editorial Institute at Boston University. The Associate Editor is Peter Eisenstadt, co-author of Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman’s Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence (2011).