From Howard Thurman
Author: Thurman, Howard (Boston University)
Date: March 14, 1956
Location: Boston, Mass.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Details
Thurman, a family friend and an influential theologian and pacifist who served as dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel, had known King during the latter’s graduate student years. The previous November he had declined King’s invitation to preach Dexter’s Men’s Day sermon in July 1956.1
Dr. Martin Luther King
309 S. Jackson Street
Montgomery, Alabama
Dear King:
I have not communicated with you before, because I wanted to be sure of my Tuskegee dates. I shall be in Tuskegee for the weekend of March 24. I arrive Saturday morning.
I would like very much to sit down and have two or three hours talk with you and one or two of your close associates. I prefer doing it in private at Tuskegee. Would you be interested in such a possibility and, if so, would it be possible for you to drive over to Tuskegee any time of Saturday afternoon, March 24? Please let me know as soon as possible.
Mrs. [Sue Bailey] Thurman wants you to use the enclosed to do something personal in nature for Mrs. King.
Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Howard Thurman
Dean
enc.
1. See King to Thurman, 31 October 1955, and Thurman to King, 14 November 1955; in Papers 2:583-584 and 588, respectively.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.