At the time of his death in 1981, Howard Thurman was Dean Emeritus of Marsh Chapel, Boston University, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust in San Francisco. He also served as Dean of Rankin Chapel, Howard University, Washington D.C.; as professor at Howard University School of Religion, and as Director of Religious Life at Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, Atlanta. Founder of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, the first interracial, interdenominational church in the United States. he was Honorary Canon of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City.

Poet, Mystic, Philosopher and Theologian, Dr. Thurman authored more than twenty books including, Meditations of the Heart, The Inward Journey, Jesus and the Disinherited, The Centering Moment, The Creative Encounter, The Search for