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Jesus and the Disinherited

Jesus and the Disinherited

About the Book

Famously known as the text that Martin Luther King Jr. sought inspiration from in the days leading up to the Montgomery bus boycott, Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited helped shape the civil rights movement and changed our nation’s history forever.

In this classic theological treatise, the acclaimed theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1900-1981) demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. Jesus is a partner in the pain of the oppressed and the example of His life offers a solution to ending the descent into moral nihilism. Hatred does not empower--it decays. Only through self-love and love of one another can God's justice prevail.
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Praise for Jesus and the Disinherited

“No other publication in the twentieth century has upended antiquated theological notions, truncated political ideas, and socially constructed racial fallacies like Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman’s work keeps showing up on the desk of anti-apartheid activists, South American human rights workers, civil rights champions, and now Black Lives Matter advocates.”
—Rev. Otis Moss III, author of Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World and senior pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ

“Howard Thurman was one of the great moral clarions of his time and Jesus and the Disinherited, his most indispensable work. Here is an uncompromising vision of Christian ethics and the meaning of Jesus’s life to the least, the last, and the lost. Thurman’s prophetic witness and piercing intellect are as relevant to our current hour of tumult as they were in 1949, when he first put these incisive thoughts to paper.”
—Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope

“Jesus and the Disinherited represents nothing less than those conversations Black parents must have with their children in a world that denies the created sacredness of their Black humanity.”
—Kelly Brown Douglas, from the 2022 Foreword
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About the Author

Howard Thurman
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About the Author

Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas
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