Search for Common Ground : An Inquiry into the Basis of Man's Experience of Community

Howard Thurman writes about building community. He calls us at once to affirm our own identity, but also to look beyond that identity to that which we have in common with all of life.

When Howard Thurman spoke, he filled the entire room with compassion, truth, keen intellect, and joy. To be in his presence was to experience the drama of life itself-with all its attending conflicts-and to be carried beyond these realities to the Reality of a gracious God whose will is life and wholeness.

Howard Thurman was graduated from Morehouse College and from Colgate-Rochester Theological Seminary. He then became a special student of philosophy in residence at Haverford College with Rufus Jones, the noted Quaker philosopher and mystic. After serving on the faculty of Howard University as Professor the Theology and Dean of Rankin Chapel (1932-1944), he moved to San Francisco to help found the intercultural and interdenominational Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples. In 1953, he became Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University (1953-65).

Friends United Press and Howard Thurman began their association in 1971 with the paperback edition of The Inward Journey. Since then, twelve other titles have been added to the Thurman paperback series.

Howard Thurman's close relationship to Quakers dates back to 1929 when, he began independent study at Haverford College with Rufus M. Jones. Thurman first discovered Rufus Jones through his book, Finding the Trail of Life. "When I finished (the book) I knew that if this man were alive, I wanted to study with him", wrote Thurman in his autobiography.