Howard W. and Sue B. Thurman Papers, 1952-1997, n.d. | Oberlin College Archives

Thurman, Howard W. (1900-1981)
Thurman, Sue B. (1901-1996)

Howard Thurman (1900-1981) was born on November 18, 1899 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was raised by his grandmother who had been a slave in the Deep South. At the time when black children rarely attended public schools because of discrimination and poverty, Howard Thurman graduated from the eighth grade, and later, the promising student attended the Florida Academy Baptist High School where he worked as a janitor to support his education. After graduating (A.B. 1923) from Morehouse College (Atlanta, Georgia) and Colgate-Rochester Divinity School (B.D. 1925), he was ordained a Baptist minister. In 1926, he assumed his first pastorate, Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio. He also pursued graduate studies at the Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College and studied with the Quaker mystic, Rufus Jones at Haverford College (Haverford, Pennsylvania).

Pastor Thurman returned to his native South in 1928 to serve as Director of Religious Life and Professor of Theology at Morehouse and Spellman Colleges (Atlanta, Georgia). In 1932, he was appointed Dean of Rankin Chapel and Professor of Systematic Theology at Howard University (Washington, D.C.). During a sabbatical leave from the university (1935-36), Thurman led the American delegation on a “Pilgrimage of Friendship” to the International Student Conference in India. During his travels in India, Ceylon, and Burma he not only lectured at more than forty universities, but he also contemplated the possibility of an interracial church. While in India, he met with Mohandas [sic] K. Ghandi and discussed the Indian religious leader’s criticism of Christianity as “fostering segregation.” Returning home, Professor Thurman began a study of the New Testament and resolved to make Christianity “live for the weak as well as the strong—for all peoples whatever their color, whatever their caste” (Thurman). Acting on his resolve, together with the Reverend Alfred Fisk, he founded a congregation in the Japanese district of San Francisco, California. The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples self-consciously brought together whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in one congregation. The church, the first fully integrated in the United States, proved that the races can “develop strong bonds of common life… that under the leadership of the Holy Spirit consciousness of racial differences quickly disappears.” (Christian Century Magazine). The deliberately formed church soon became a dynamic influence for good throughout San Francisco.

In 1953, after nine years as a pastor at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, Howard Thurman accepted the position of University Preacher and Professor of Spiritual Discipline and Resources at Boston University’s School of Theology (Boston, Massachusetts). He was the first African-American to hold a full-time university post. Concurrently, he also served as Dean of Marsh Chapel and Minister-at-Large to the university. While at Boston University, he became a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., who carried with him Thurman’s devotional and nurturing book, Jesus and the Disinherited, on all his travels.

Called a “20th century saint” by Ebony Magazine, Thurman was selected as one of the twelve outstanding preachers in the United States in a nationwide poll conducted by Life Magazine. It is clear that Professor Thurman was enormously popular as a lecturer and that he had reached a lot of people. He was the Ingersoll Lecturer on the Immortality of Man at Harvard University in 1947; Merrick Lecturer at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1954; visiting professor at the University of Iowa for two semesters; and, lecturer at Columbia University’s bi-centennial celebration. He was a convocation lecturer at many schools of theology including Andover Newton Theological Seminary, Pacific School of Religion, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, Howard University, the University of Toronto, and Union Theological Seminary.

He preached at more than 200 American and Canadian institutions, among them The University of Chicago; The Ohio State University; Howard University; Fisk University; The universities of Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. He once commented that he especially enjoyed speaking at Morgan College (Baltimore, Maryland) where he could again live in the thought world of the Negro student (Thurman). He was the lecturer for the Biennial Convocation of the United Church of Canada in 1948 and lecturer on religion for the Biennial Assembly of the National Y.W.C.A. in 1949.

Professor Thurman was a prolific author on religion and race. Among his more acclaimed theological book titles are: The Greatest of These (1945); Deep River (1945); The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death (1947); Jesus and the Disinherited (1949); Meditations of the Heart (1953); The Creative Encounter (1954); Deep River (revised 1955); The Growing Edge (1956). He also authored books of poetry; he published several collected volumes of sermons and talks; and he contributed to the Interpreters Bible and an essay on religion to an anthology, Defense of Democracy. His autobiography, With Head and Heart, was published in 1979 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Many honors also came to the Reverend Dr. Thurman. He received honorary doctorates from eleven colleges and universities, including Morehouse College, Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut), Ohio Wesleyan University (Delaware, Ohio), Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri), Howard University, Lincoln University (Lincoln, Pennsylvania), Allen University (Columbia, South Carolina), and Oberlin College. A special honor occurred when Professor Thurman returned to Daytona Beach to deliver the baccalaureate at Bethune-Cookman College. The entire city celebrated “Howard Thurman Day” in honor of their native son. Thurman recalled that as a child he could not enter certain parts of the city without authorization by a white man. As part of the festivities, Bethune-Cookman College awarded him the Mary McLeod Bethune medallion.

Howard Thurman was a member of several professional organizations. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Council of Religion in Higher Education and a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was a board member of the Whitney Young Memorial Foundation; a trustee of Morehouse College; a member of the board of trustees of the Broadcasting Foundation of America; the Travelers Aid Society; the Urban League of Boston; the advisory board of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination; and, a member of the corporation of the United Community Services of Boston.

After his retirement from Boston University (May 1965), Dr. Thurman returned to San Francisco and The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples from which he had been on indefinite leave of absence since 1953. He also directed the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, which endowed scholarships for black students and provided funds for literary, scientific, religious, and charitable projects.

On June 12, 1932, Howard W. Thurman married Sue E. Bailey (1901-1996; Oberlin College Mus.B. 1926; A.B. 1943). Mrs. Thurman was active in charitable and interracial affairs. She served as a National Secretary, Student Division of the Y.W.C.A. National Board. She directed the inter-cultural workshop on The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, planning and presenting a regular lecture series, exhibits, recitals, and symposia, which brought to the church such well-known figures as Alan Paton. Among her other activities was leading a multi-racial/cultural delegation to the UNESCO Conference in Paris (1949); she also traveled with the fellowship Quintet which gave successful concerts in Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York as well as London and Paris; writing eight articles on “Pioneers of Negro Origin in California” for the San Francisco Sun Reporter. As Historian and National Chairman of the Archives and Museum Department of the National Council of Negro Women, she assembled historical materials for the Council’s Museum in Washington, D.C. She actively assisted the libraries in Arkansas named for her mother, Mrs. Susie Ford Bailey.

The couple had two daughters; Olive (Mrs. Victor Wong), a Vassar graduate (Class of 1948), and Anne Spencer Thurman (Mrs. Carl Chiarenza [divorced], 1933-2001; enrolled 1950-52). When Anne Thurman graduated from the Emma Willard School (Troy, New York) in 1950, she was the first Negro in the preparatory school’s 135-year history to do so. Howard Thurman’s sister, Madaline M. Thurman (Mrs. John B. Johnson) [separated or divorced] (1907-1984; A.B. 1929, A.M. 1932), was also an Oberlin graduate.

The Reverend Dr. Howard W. Thurman died in San Francisco on April 10, 1981. Sue Bailey Thurman also died in San Francisco on December 25, 1996.

Sources Consulted

“Area Deaths: Rev. H. Thurman, Baptist minister,” Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram (April 15, 1981): D2.

Austin, Charles, “Dr. Howard Thurman: A Noted Black Cleric And Educator in U.S.” The New York Times (April 14, 1981): n.p.

“Boston Dean to Speak to Methodists,” unidentified newspaper clipping dated June 4, 1964.

“Dr. Howard Thurman to Give Beach Convocation Lectures,” The New York Times [?] (January 4, 1958): n.p.

“Dr. Howard Thurman,” unidentified one-page typescript biography.

“Dr. Thurman Due at Karamu’s 40th Anniversary Fete,” unidentified newspaper clipping.

Flint, Nancy, “In the Warp, Woof Of American Life,” unidentified newspaper editorial.

Gillespie, Ray L., “Dr. Howard Thurman Will Speak at Karamu’s 40th Year Luncheon,” The Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer (October 23, 1955): n.p.

“News About Boston University,” University Bureau of Publicity Bulletin No. 52-165 (March 19, 1953).

“News from the Washington University News Bureau” (February 14, 1955).

“‘One Lord, One Faith’ is Lenten Theme at Old Stone Services,” The Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer (February 4, 1967): n.p.

“Rev. Howard Thurman,” Oberlin College obituary notice, n.d.

The Howard Thurmans, Holiday Letter to Friends, (January 1950).

“Welcome for Dr. Thurman: B.D. Chapel’s Negro Dean to Receive Dixie Honors,” unidentified newspaper clipping.

Author: Elizabeth Brinkman

manuscripts
moving images - videocassettes
pamphlets
publications