Baker Honors Black History: Howard Thurman - the Man who Inspired Martin Luther King Jr.
Born November 18, 1899, in Daytona, Florida, Howard Thurman was raised in Waycross, one of Daytona's three all-black communities.
He attended Morehouse College where he graduated as valedictorian in 1923 before being ordained as a Baptist minister in 1925 by the First Baptist Church of Roanoke, Virgina. Turman was selected as the first dean of Rankin College at Howard University in the District of Columbia in 1932. He served there from 1932 to 1944. He also served on the faculty of the Howard University School of Divinity.
In 1944, he cofounded the Church of Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco - an interracial congregation intentionally designed to break through 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 Massachusetts because of his unifying philosophy. Thurman accepted, moving to Boston in 1953 to serve as Dean of Marsh Chapel. With this appointment, Thurman became the first African American Dean at a predominately white institution in the United States.
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. Much like King, 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.
"A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope." - Howard Thurman
You can learn more about Howard Thurman by visiting Who is Howard Thurman? | Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground (bu.edu), Howard Thurman - Wikipedia, Thurman, Howard | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute (stanford.edu), or Home · The Howard Thurman Digital Archive (emory.edu).
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