The Search for Common Ground by Howard Thurman

Thurman suggested in his 1949 Jesus and the Disinherited that the teachings of Jesus had a special significance for those with their backs against the wall ( 1996, 11). By the time he met Gandhi, and in ways similar to Gandhi, Thurman sharply distinguished the religion of Jesus from the injustices that are historically inseparable from the institution of Christianity. At the first meeting of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference (later called the Southern Christian L eadership Conference) in 1957, Bayard Rustin asked King, Do you remember what Gandhi told Howard Thurman in India, many years ago? He then recited Gandhi’s seemingly prophetic words, that it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of non-violence will be delivered to the world ( 2009, 337 see also 1975, 132).

Thurman, whose ideas were repeatedly put to the test during the civil rights movement, is best known as a mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. The result was a distinctively African American philosophy of nonviolent but active resistance to social injustice. As one of the first in a long line of African American intellectuals to meet with Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram in India, in 1936, Thurman quickly appropriated and adeptly applied the philosophy of nonviolence to the problem of racism as well as to materialism and imperialism in America. Howard Thurman (1899–1981) is one of the unsung heroes of the civil rights movement in America. Throughout his life Thurman strove to create a climate of 'inner unity of fellowship that went beyond the barriers of race, class, and tradition.' In this volume Jensen meticulously documents and analyzes Thurman as a philosopher, activist, and peacemaker and illuminates his vital and founding role in and contributions to the monumental achievements of the civil rights era. Showing how Thurman was a 'social activist mystic' as well as a pragmatist, Jensen explains how these beliefs helped provide the foundation for King's notion of the beloved community. Jensen explicates Thurman's construction of a philosophy on nonviolence and the political power of love. Thurman espoused a unique brand of personalism. While Thurman's profound influence on King has been documented, Jensen shows how Thurman's reach extended to an entire generation of activists.

Jensen provides new ways of understanding Thurman's foundational role in and broad influence on the civil rights movement and argues persuasively that he is one of the unsung heroes of that time. In Howard Thurman: Philosophy, Civil Rights, and the Search for Common Ground, Kipton E.

Although he is best known as a mentor to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman (1900–1981) was an exceptional philosopher and public intellectual in his own right.

The Search for Common Ground by Howard Thurman