Mystic Resistance

ONE OF THE MOST influential figures in the African-American civil rights movement did not march, organize, or speak at mass rallies. Mystic Howard Thurman found spiritual revelation in nature, championed the use of dance, theater, and nontraditional music in worship, and incorporated silence in his sermons. But his books, preaching, and teaching provided vital philosophical and spiritual underpinnings for the nonviolent resistance methods championed by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.

Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story, airing on PBS in February, is a documentary by Martin Doblmeier, the award-winning creator of films on faith including An American Conscience, Chaplains, and Bonhoeffer. In this rich, one-hour portrait of Thurman, civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson Sr., Rep. John Lewis, and others—as well as scholars such as Alton B. Pollard III, Walter Earl Fluker, Luther E. Smith, and Lerita Coleman Brown—offer insights on Thurman’s life, legacy, and the dynamic tension between contemplation and social justice.

The film’s title is from Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited , published in 1949—said to have been carried by King and often cited by other civil rights leaders. Thurman wrote: “The masses of [people] live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them?”

Thurman’s lifelong engagement with this question produced wisdom as vital for our day as it was for his.

Born in 1899, Thurman grew up surrounded by the strictures and brutality of Jim Crow-era Florida. He found spiritual solace and inspiration in nature from his earliest days. Education was also a passion. Thurman became a professor of Christian theology and dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in 1932.

Thurman first explored pacifism as a spiritual resource as a young man, in part through the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Quaker mystic Rufus Jones. His commitment to nonviolence as both philosophy and tactic was cemented during a delegation to India, Burma, and Sri Lanka that he co-led in 1935-36 with his wife, Sue Bailey Thurman. He was profoundly affected by the encounter with other religious traditions and saw parallels between the brutal British colonial rule and the white supremacist power structures underlying U.S. racial segregation. He met Mahatma Gandhi and discussed the use of nonviolent resistance to confront oppressive governments.

Thurman, however, did not later join the civil rights movement on the streets, for which he was criticized. His influence was through his books (more than 20 in his lifetime), co-founding a multiracial church, and his direct influence on others through academic and pastoral encounters.

Thurman’s later tenure as dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel from 1953 to 1965 overlapped with King’s doctoral studies there, although Doblmeier notes that they were not considered close. But Thurman visited King in the hospital after a 1958 stabbing, urging him to take time away for silence and listening. After healing from his injuries, King went to India, which was for him, as it was for Thurman, a journey pivotal for his commitment to nonviolent resistance.

Thurman saw the pursuit of justice as nonnegotiable. But as Backs Against the Wall makes clear, he also invited all to rooted spirituality as a source of courage and transcendence. “All social issues are temporary and brief,” he said. “Go deep.”