Howard Thurman (November 18, 1899 – April 10, 1981) was an influential African American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader. He was Dean of Chapel at Howard University and Boston University for more than two decades, wrote 21 books, and in 1944 helped found a multicultural church. Thurman, along with Mordecai Johnson and Vernon Johns, was considered one of the three greatest African-American preachers in the early 20th-century. Howard Thurman was born in 1899 in Daytona Beach, Florida and grew up in the segregated South.In 1923, Howard Thurman graduated from Morehouse College as valedictorian. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1925, after completing his study at the Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary (now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School). Shortly after ordination, he pastored Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio from 1925 to 1928. He then pursued further study as a special student of philosophy at Haverford College with Rufus Jones, a noted Quaker philosopher and mystic.Thurman was selected as the first dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in the District of Columbia in 1932. He served there from 1932 to 1944. He also served on the faculty of the Howard University School of Divinity.Thurman traveled broadly, heading Christian missions and meeting with world figures such as Mahatma Gandhi. When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to the United States, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible as a practice worldwide and suggested some American black men would succeed where he had failed.
In 1944 Thurman left his tenured position at Howard to help the Fellowship of Reconciliation establish the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. It was the first racially integrated, intercultural church in the United States. He served as co-pastor with a white minister, Dr. Alfred Fisk. Many of their congregation were African Americans who had migrated to San Francisco from Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas for jobs in the defense industry. The church helped create a new community for many in San Francisco.Dr. Thurman was then invited to Boston University in 1958, where he became the first black dean of Marsh Chapel (1953–1965). He was the first black person to be named tenured Dean of Chapel at a majority-white university. In addition, he served on the faculty of Boston University's School of Theology. Thurman was also active and well known in the Boston community, where he influenced many leaders. During his tenure at Boston University, the Marsh Chapel Experiment was conducted (though without his knowledge).