Thurman: Chapters 4-6

Please read (or reread) the last chapter of Search for Common Ground: "The Search in Identity."  If you can, read it at the pace Thurman might have delivered it as a lecture.  If you need to refresh his voice in your ear, then listen to him at: the Expanding Ground Digital Library.

In this chapter, Howard Thurman surveys in part 3, the history of the rise of the Black Power movement—a social movement that arose in the 60’s among Black Americans seeking a way to provide safety and self-sufficiency to their neighborhoods and families by establishing their own places of business, school, health services, etc. Thurman was writing in the mid-1970s after the deaths of both MLK, Jr. and Malcom X.  

It seems important to me that we are reading this final "search" chapter in the month of The Mystery of the Quest for Thurman talks about the rise of this movement as a quest for wholeness, a search for identity.  As you read, give thought to what you were thinking and doing in the 60’s and 70’s. Consider Joseph Campbell's hero path and think about these historical events in terms of the possibility of a myth emerging somewhere in this history.  

Give special contemplative attention to the final paragraph of the chapter when Thurman becomes prophetic.... If Thurman could add one more paragraph or another chapter, even.....what might he see/say/admonish....

Here's an extra credit assignment for all you super students....what would a conversation between Barzun and Thurman sound like....(think last chapter From Dawn to Decadence and last chapter Search for Common Ground).  

And, if you want an infinite amount of extra credit, what would a conversation between Thurman and you be like?  If you could sit on the porch with him for the afternoon, what would that shared experience be like for you? 

Try to state in your own words, what Howard Thurman's quest is....and why he thinks it important. 

Next conversation: Sunday, October 4th, 6:30pm MDT (via Zoom)
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