Pastor, poet, critic and educator, Howard Washington Thurman (1899-1981) was named by Life magazine in 1953 as one of the 12 greatest preachers of the 20th century. Through his many books, articles, sermons and counsel, Thurman reached a wide variety of audiences and continues to do so today.

The younger generation of modern civil rights movement leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young, Vernon Jordan and James Farmer, regularly sought Thurman's pastoral guidance and political counsel. In recent years, the late Arthur Ashe, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and a host of others discovered Thurman's work for themselves and commended it to future generations. Jesse Jackson truly spoke for a multitude of admirers when he proclaimed Thurman "a teacher of teachers, a leader of leaders, a preacher of preachers."

Thurman was born in the segregated town of Daytona, Fla. Raised and ordained in the Baptist Church, educated at Morehouse College (B.A. 1923) and Rochester Theological Seminary (B.D. 1926). By the time he was a young man, he had integrated into his African American religious heritage elements of various mystical traditions, the philosophy of pragmatism and the Social Gospel to form the basis of a distinctive interfaith, interracial ministry.

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