The Howard Thurman Papers Project

FAIN: RQ-50886-14

Boston University (Boston, MA 02215-1300)
Walter E. Fluker (Project Director: January 2014 to December 2019)

Preparation for publication of volumes 5 and 6 of the collected papers of Howard Thurman (1899-1981), American theologian, preacher, and civil rights leader. (36 months)

Founded in 1992, the mission of the Howard Thurman Papers Project is to preserve and promote Howard Thurman’s vast documentary record, which spans 63 years and consists of approximately 58,000 items (111 linear feet) of correspondence, sermons, unpublished writings, and speeches. To achieve this mission, the Project is publishing a six-volume documentary edition of Thurman’s correspondence and writings.

Associated Products

The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 3, The Bold Aventure, September 1943-May 1949 (Book)
Title: The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 3, The Bold Aventure, September 1943-May 1949
Author: Howard Washington Thurman
Editor: Kai Jackson Issa, Consulting Editor
Editor: Walter Earl Fluker, Senior Editor
Editor: Peter Eisenstadt, Associate Editor
Editor: Silvia P. Glick, Managing Editor
Editor: Luther E. Smith, Jr., Senior Advisory Editor
Editor: Quinton H. Dixie, Consulting Editor
Abstract: This is a multivolume, chronological documentary edition of the writings of a leader in the intellectual and religious life of United States in the mid–twentieth century. Thurman met with Mahatma Gandhi in 1936; he later became a founder of the civil rights movement and a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. In 1953 Life magazine named Thurman one of the twelve greatest preachers of the century. This volume documents Thurman's 1940s founding and leadership of the Fellowship Church for All Peoples in San Francisco, California—the nation's first major interracial, interfaith church, in a city far from the mainstream of black life. The war years worried him, with America’s willingness to accept things that had been intolerable in peacetime, an emphasis on destroying enemies—real and imagined—and the conviction that the only way to solve problems was through the use of force. His letters, essays, and sermons show Thurman struggling to define and maintain the interracial character and practice of Fellowship Church, building its programs and membership while constantly wrestling with financial and location problems and preserving its separation from other organizations, most notably the Communist Party and its adult education program, the California Labor School. Thurman was also becoming more of a national figure, partly a result of the attention given to the Fellowship Church in publications such as Time magazine, but also because he had begun to publish regularly. From his first book, The Greatest of These, it was only three years until his Ingersoll lecture at Harvard, "The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death," was offered by Harper. Two years later Thurman published what has proven his most enduring work, Jesus and the Disinherited, arguing that the key to understanding the religion of Jesus was his lack of Roman citizenship, a condition Thurman compared to the lives of Southern black people, who, like Jesus, were effectively disinherited.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/papers-of-howard-washington-thurman-the-bold-adventure-september-1943-may-1949/oclc/908086014&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: https://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2015/7541.html
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Print book
Publisher: Columbia: University of South Carolina Press
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781611175417
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 4: The Soundless Passion of a Single Mind, June 1949-December 1962 (Book)
Title: The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 4: The Soundless Passion of a Single Mind, June 1949-December 1962
Author: Howard Washinton Thurman
Editor: Luther E. Smith, Jr., Senior Advisory Editor
Editor: Silvia P. Glick, Managing Editor
Editor: Peter Eisenstadt, Associate Editor
Editor: Walter Earl Fluker, Senior Editor
Abstract: Volume 4 covers Thurman's final years at the Fellowship Church in San Francisco, his years as the dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, and as professor of spiritual resources at Boston University's School of Theology. In taking on these positions, Thurman became the first African American dean of chapel at a majority-white college or university in the United States, and the first tenured African American professor at Boston University's School of Theology.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/papers-of-howard-washington-thurman-the-soundless-passion-of-a-single/oclc/985226749&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: It is the worldcat.org link.
Secondary URL: https://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2017/7804.html
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing.
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Columbia: University of South Carolina Press
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781611178043
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 5: The Wider Ministry, January 1963-April 1981 (Book)
Title: The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman: Volume 5: The Wider Ministry, January 1963-April 1981
Author: Howard Washingtom Thurman
Editor: Luther E. Smith, Jr., Senior Advisory Editor
Editor: Walter Earl Fluker, Senior Editor
Editor: Peter Eisenstadt, Associate Editor
Editor: Silvia P. Glick, Managing Editor
Abstract: The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman is a five-volume, chronologically arranged documentary edition spanning the long career of the Reverend Howard Thurman, a leader in the history of intellectual and religious life in the mid-twentieth-century United States. The first to lead a delegation of African Americans to meet personally with Mahatma Gandhi, in 1936, Thurman later became one of the principal architects of the modern, nonviolent civil rights movement and a key mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1953 Life magazine named Thurman as one of the twelve greatest preachers of the century. This fifth and final volume covers the last seventeen years of his life, from the end of his ministry as Boston University’s dean of chapel in 1963 through his passing in April 1981. Thurman referred to these years as his “wider ministry,” one untethered to a specific congregation or institution, spreading his spiritual gifts and insights as widely as possible from his base in San Francisco. A resonant theme is Thurman’s interaction with the black freedom struggle, from its heyday in the early 1960s through the turn to black power and nationalism. This includes Thurman’s correspondence with many of the movement’s leading figures and thinkers, among them Martin Luther King, Jr.; Whitney Young, Jr.; Jesse Jackson; Vincent Harding; and Lerone Bennett. Thurman’s final years saw the culmination of his expansive religious vision, in his attempt to fashion a conception of spirituality that was at once deeply personal and truly inclusive. These final documents refer to many aspects of this, including his work with the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, his seminars with young African American divinity students, his outreach to Judaism and other religions, his efforts to come to terms with the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s, and his endeavors to pass on his legacy to another generation.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/papers-of-howard-washington-thurman-the-wider-ministry-january/oclc/1066119436&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: https://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2019/7949.html
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Columbia: University of South Carolina Press
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781611179491
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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