Thurman, Howard Washington
1899-1981 · Contribution: 1932-1965
Theologian; mystic; minister
Theologian and mystic whose writings and personal mentorship directly shaped Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent philosophy; co-founded the first major interracial, interdenominational church in the United States
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Quick facts
- Born
- 1899, Daytona, Florida
- Active since
- 1932
- Category
- Religious & Spiritual Leadership
- Best known for
- Shaping the theology behind the nonviolent civil rights movement
Impact on the world
Thurman supplied the theological and mystical foundation for the nonviolent movement, interpreting Jesus as one of the dispossessed whose teachings offered liberation, a framework one scholar says King's movement could not have emerged without.
Sources
- Encyclopædia Britannica
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Related visionaries
King, Martin Luther Jr.
1929-1968
Baptist ministry and nonviolent civil rights leadership grounded in Christian theology and Gandhian nonviolence; sermons, speeches, and writings including 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' (1963) and the 'I Have a Dream' speech (1963)
Cone, James H.
1938-2018
Systematic theology; founded Black liberation theology, arguing that the Christian gospel is centrally about God's identification with the oppressed; author of 'Black Theology and Black Power' (1969), 'A Black Theology of Liberation' (1970), and 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' (2011)
Crummell, Alexander
1819-1898
Became one of the first Black Americans ordained an Episcopal priest, founded St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. — the first independent Black Episcopal congregation in the city — and in 1897 co-founded the American Negro Academy, the first major organization supporting Black scholarship in America
Hall, Prathia LauraAnn
1940-2002
Credited as the originator of the phrase “I have a dream,” spoken during a 1962 prayer vigil that Martin Luther King Jr. attended and later asked her permission to echo in his own preaching, while serving as one of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's first female field secretaries and later becoming a pioneering Baptist minister and womanist theologian