Howard Thurman and the Ancestors Dr. Alton Pollard, III

A quote by Howard Thurman that I found inspiring:
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."


Howard Thurman was very active in Howard University's history. Other ancestors who where explored in the lecture as  legacies of Howard University included Jarena Lee and Sojourner Truth

Howard Thurman (1899 – April 10, 1981) was an influential American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader

Thurman was selected as dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in the District of Columbia in 1932. He served there from 1932-1944.

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.

 Howard Thurman's poem 'I Will Light Candles This Christmas' 

I will light Candles this Christmas; 

Candles of joy despite all sadness, 

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch, 

Candles of courage for fears ever present,

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days, 

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens, 

Candles of love to inspire all my living, 

Candles that will burn all the year long.

"In the conflicts between man and man, between group and group, between nation and nation, the loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable. The radical tension between good and evil, as man sees it and feels it, does not have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence. There is a spirit in man and in the world working always against the thing that destroys and lays waste. Always he must know that the contradictions of life are not final or ultimate; he must distinguish between failure and a many-sided awareness so that he will not mistake conformity for harmony, uniformity for synthesis. He will know that for all men to be alike is the death of life in man, and yet perceive harmony that transcends all diversities and in which diversity finds its richness and significance." From The Search For Common Ground; An Inquiry Into The Basis Of Man's Experience Of Community.