Howard Thurman was an author, educator, lecturer, pastor, and theologian. In 1953 he was selected by Life Magazine as one of the twelve “Great Preachers” of the twentieth century. He addressed more than 500 colleges and institutions around the globe, received 17 honorary degrees, and authored over 20 books.
Howard Thurman was the second child and only son born to Saul Solomon and Alice (Ambrose) Thurman in Daytona Beach, Florida, on November 18, 1899. His grandmother, Nancy Ambrose, reared the young Thurman and told him about her difficult experiences during slavery and of the enslaved’s deep religious faith. In 1915, he entered Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville and matriculated to Morehouse College in 1919. Thurman spent the summer of 1922 studying economics and philosophy in residence at Columbia University. In 1923, he completed his undergraduate education in economics at Morehouse College as class valedictorian. In 1923, Thurman was offered one of the two placements allotted to black students at Rochester Theological Seminary.
In 1926, he earned the Bachelor of Divinity degree, having served as student government president and graduating yet again as class valedictorian. Following his graduation from Rochester Theological Seminary, he served as pastor of The Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio from 1926 to 1928. In the spring of 1929, Thurman was granted a Charles Fisher Kent fellowship by the National Council on Religion in Higher Education and studied mysticism with Dr. Rufus Jones at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
Thurman served as the Director of Religious Life at Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in Atlanta. He was one of the first three deans of a chapel in the United States with his stint as the first dean of Andrew Rankin Chapel at Howard University. As an educator, Thurman took time to engage his students in deep conversation about their unrealized potential, prompting them with questions like, “Who are you, really?”
From September 1935 to March 1936 Thurman led the Pilgrimage of Friendship, the first Black American delegation to India, Burma, and Ceylon, sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation and the Student Christian Movements of India and the United States. While in India, Thurman met Mohandas K. Gandhi, whose ideas of nonviolent revolution had a lasting influence on Thurman, and led the delegation’s lectureship in over 45 academic centers in the region.
In 1944, Thurman cofounded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco—an interracial congregation intentionally designed to break through the barriers that separated people on the basis of race, color, creed, or national origin.
Thurman’s work in San Francisco attracted the eye of then-Boston University President Harold C. Case, who recruited Thurman to serve as the dean of Marsh Chapel from 1953 to 1965. With this appointment, Thurman became the first African American Dean at a predominantly white institution in the United States. He came determined to test his ideas of common ground and a pluralistic community, and Boston University would serve as an ideal laboratory. In his twelve years at Boston University, Thurman engaged with national luminaries on campus like James Baldwin, Arthur Ashe, and, most notably, a doctoral student named Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59).
Thurman dedicated his life to the pursuit of a society that could acknowledge its differences yet elevate its common human ties. He visualized a world where racial, ethnic, or religious barriers did not serve as a roadblock to creating meaningful relationships. He called on us to do what makes us come alive, and it’s his collective story, philosophy, and vision that drives Boston University to create a community filled with openness, generosity, and fellowship.
