Thurman (Howard) is born in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The grandson of slaves, Howard Thurman graduates from Morehouse College and Rochester Theological Seminary, becomes a minister, then teaches at Morehouse College, and Howard University. He marries Sue Bailey in 1932, and comes to Boston in 1953 to serve as Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, where he mentors Martin Luther King Jr. After meeting Mahatma Gandhi in India in 1936, he becomes an influential teacher and preacher of non-violence. U.S. Rep. John Lewis later calls him “The saint of the civil rights movement.” Thurman retires in 1965. He dies in San Francisco on April 10, 1981.