Purpose & Goal

The project was established to publish sermons, essays, letters and other writings of Howard Washington Thurman - a towering figure in 20th century American religious cultural life - that have not been published before or that warrant republication.

Since the project's inception in 1992, the editors have been cataloging and researching the Howard Thurman Papers and the Sue Bailey Thurman Papers at Boston University, as well as materials from related collections. In addition, the editors are building the first comprehensive database of Thurman materials which will contain more than 58,000 documents and prove to be of inestimable value to scholars. Documents from this database will appear in The Sound of the Genuine: The Papers of Howard Thurman, a three-volume documentary edition to be published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2004.

The Sound of The Genuine will be launched by an introductory essay by project editor, Walter Earl Fluker. Incorporating biographical detail that has long remained buried in archival sources, Dr. Fluker will guide the reader through the dominant themes in Thurman's thought: his understanding of spirituality and social transformation, his creative ecclesiology, and his conception of civic character and the national democratic experiment. To illuminate Thurman's personal, professional, and intellectual development, each document will be provided with full scholarly annotation. Each volume will also include photographs, an index, and a calendar of documents.

This collection will make for lively and compelling reading, for Howard Thurman's dialogue with the world of public theology is the story of a nation taking stock of its political and religious heritage. The Sound of the Genuine will make an invaluable contribution not only to American intellectual history and to the history of African-American religion, but to "America in Search of a Soul," as Thurman entitled one of his sermons.

The Howard Thurman Papers Project, is made possible, in part, through the generous support of The Lilly Endowment, Inc., The Pew Charitable Trusts, The National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Louisville Institute for the Study of Protestantism and American Culture.

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Please direct comments or questions to Kai Jackson Issa.