jesus and the disinherited by howard thurman

They yielded with abiding enthusiasm to a view of life which included all the events of their experience without exhausting themselves in those experiences. The slaves made a worthless life-the life of chattel property, a mere thing, a body-worth living. My roots are deep in the throbbing reality of Negro idiom and from it I draw a full measure of inspiration and vitality. And this insight is spiritual and it its the hard core of religious experience.

Nevertheless, a strange necessity has been laid upon me to devote my life to the central concern that transcends the walls that divide and would achieve in literal fact what is experienced as literal truth: Human life is one and all humans are members of one another. Living outside of the region, I am aware of the national span of racial prejudice and the virus of segregation that undermines the vitality of American life. From Preface of Luminous Darkness (1960): 'The fact that 25 years of my life were spent in Florida and in Georgia has left deep scars in my spirit and has rendered me terribly sensitive to the churning abyss separating white from black.MLK was known to carry a copy of Jesus & the Disinherited with him wherever we went.Thurman’s impact on Martin Luther King, Jr.Mysticism and activism belong in vital connection with each other.Jesus and the Disinherited-finding the inward strength to stand up to oppression.Influenced by Ghandi’s approach to non-violence (soul force).Thurman’s ministry and theology represents the bringing together of these three themes: (1) divine common ground with all living things, (2) the devastating effects of social injustice on human personhood, and (3) sharing in the humanity of Jesus uniquely revealed in the history of Black suffering and the resilience of Black joy.'The humanity we share with Jesus is one that cannot be reduced or dominated, but holds a value in union with God that goes beyond any attempt we can make to manipulate it for our own purposes.'.Vitality of Christian faith and Black Christian resistance to slaveholder Christianity.The trauma of alienation in the Jim Crow segregation.

Thurman was the author of the influential book, Jesus & the Disinherited, which Martin Luther King, Jr. Sameer Yadav honors Howard Thurman, minister, theologian, philosopher, civil rights activist. 'A strange necessity has been laid upon me to devote my life to the central concern that transcends the walls that divide and would achieve in literal fact what is experienced as literal truth: Human life is one and all humans are members of one another' (Howard Thurman, The Luminous Darkness).

Jesus and the disinherited by howard thurman