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The American South Series
Against the Hounds of Hell: A Life of Howard Thurman
An inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and other leaders of the civil rights movement, Howard Thurman was a crucial figure in the history of African Americans in the 20th century. Until now, however, he has not received the biographical treatment he deserves. In Against the Hounds of Hell, Thurman scholar Peter Eisenstadt offers a fascinating exploration of the life of this religious thinker and activist. Thurman’s life, was as notable for its remarkable variety as its accomplishments. The first significant African American pacifist, Thurman was the first African American to meet Mahatma Gandhi. An early and outspoken feminist, environmentalist, and advocate for social and economic justice, he was one of the first and most insistent mid-twentieth-century proponents of racial integration. At the same time, he was a key figure in the emergence of mysticism and spirituality as an alternative to formal religion. Thurman dedicated his career to challenging what he called the "hounds of hell"―the ways in which fear, deception, and hatred so often dogged the steps of African Americans and the marginalized and disinherited peoples of the world. This biography will at last establish this multifaceted historical personage as a leading figure of twentieth-century American politics, religion, and culture.
- GenresBiography
544 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
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February 21, 2025
A Biography Of Howard Thurman
It is rare late in life to find a writer that becomes treasured, but I had the good fortune in finding such a writer in Howard Thurman. Thurman (1899 -- 1980) was an African American mystic, educator, theologian, philosopher, and civil rights activist. I learned of Thurman through my study of Martin Luther King and through my interest in philosophical mysticism. Many other people are coming to share a fascination with Thurman. Late in 2020, Paul Harvey wrote his short biography, "Howard Thurman and the Disinherited: A Religious Biography." Within months, Peter Eisenstadt published this new more detailed biography, "Against the Hounds of Hell: A Life of Howard Thurman" (2021). Both Harvey's and Eisenstadt's books taught me a great deal and will reward reading by those interested in Thurman. This review is of the Eisenstadt volume.
Eisenstadt is a widely-published historian in a unique position to write a biography of Thurman. He was the co-author with Quinton Dixie of an earlier book about Thurman's trip to India, "Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence" (2011). For many years, he was the associate editor with the scholar of religion Walter Fluker of the Howard Thurman Papers Project which resulted in the publication of five volumes of Thurman's papers and two volumes of his unpublished sermons. These volumes will be invaluable to students of Thurman, and Eisenstadt makes extensive use of them in his biography, together with a broad range of published and unpublished material by and about Thurman.
Thurman's work and life combine a deeply introspective philosophical mysticism and sense of unity in apparent diversity with a strong commitment to social activism, particularly as it involves the lives of African Americans and of downtrodden people everywhere. Eisenstadt discusses both the mystical and the activist components of Thurman, but gives a strong emphasis throughout the book on the latter. I have tended to see Thurman more as a spiritual seeker and teacher, and this role might have received more emphasis in the book.
The volume's title, "Against the Hounds of Hell" is taken from Thurman's most famous book, "Jesus and the Disinherited" (1949) which became a critical work for the Civil Rights Movement. Eisenstadt discusses the book in detail with a focus on fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three "hounds of hell" that Thurman describes as tracking the trail of the disinherited. Among many other things, Eisenstadt draws an insightful parallel between Thurman's hounds of hell and the hellhounds in a source Thurman probably didn't know: the "Hellhounds on my Trail" in the iconic song by bluesman Robert Johnson. Similar parallels and references run through and enhance Eisenstadt's book.
The biography begins in the middle of Thurman's life, in 1935-36, when he travelled to India with his wife and another couple as part of a "Negro Delegation". The importance of this trip to Thurman's work cannot be overstated and is the subject of Eisenstadt's earlier book on Thurman. The delegation became the first group of African Americans to meet Gandhi. While passing through the fabled Khyber Pass, Thurman experienced an epiphany which inspired him to create "a religious fellowship developed in America that was capable of cutting across all racial barriers, with a carry-over into the common life." Thurman would work towards the fulfillment of this vision in his role in establishing and leading the first interracial church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, in San Francisco. It was an ambitious and visionary ideal.
The remainder of the biography is presented chronologically, beginning with Thurman's childhood in the heavily segregated and poor community of Daytona, Florida, through his education and positions at Howard University, the Fellowship Church, Boston University, and the broader, untethered ministry in the last years of his life. The book closely intertwines the story of Thurman's life, including his long second marriage to Sue Bailey Thurman, and his friends and critical influences, with a consideration of his thought and writings. Thus many chapters begin with a biographical narrative followed by a discussion of Thurman's key writings from the period. Among the writings of Thurman that receive close discussion are "Jesus and the Disinherited", mentioned above, his thesis at Rochester Theological Seminary which focused on sexuality, the studies of the Negro Spirituals, "Deep River and the Negro Speaks of Life and Death", the account of the early years of the Fellowship Church, "Footprints of a Dream", his discussion of spiritual growth in "Disciplines of the Spirit", his late discussion of segregation at the close of the Civil Rights Era, "The Luminous Darknes" the attempt to summarize his mystical and social philosophy in "The Search for Common Ground", and his autobiography completed just before his death, "With Head and Heart." Eisenstadt's discussion of his sources is always insightful and should encourage readers of the biography to explore some of these works for themselves.
The book describes well the influences on Thurman and those whom he greatly influenced. The former group includes the South African novelist and feminist Olive Schreiner, whom Thurman studied throughout his life, as well as the Quaker mystic and philosopher Rufus Jones. The latter group includes a spectrum of individuals, including Martin Luther King, Jr. the Jewish thinker Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Walter Pankhe, James Farmer, Jesse Jackson, and many other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Thurman's influence continues. He may ultimately be remembered, in my view, more for his spirituality and mysticism than for his political commitments and his role as an advocate for civil rights, crucial and important as these are.
Eisenstadt clearly loves his subject and understands Thurman well, writing, with an allusion to the title of Thurman's anthology of the writings of Olive Schreiner that "[f]or the past quarter century, with a few extended breaks, I have been trying to take the measure of this extraordinary man. What began as a job has become a calling and a mission, my track to the water's edge." The book is clearly, if densely written, and benefits from slow reading. The endnotes refer to and expand upon the many sources discussed in the text, many of which merit pursuing on their own. The biography concludes with an eloquent summary of Thurman's vision and of his continued importance which reads in part.
"In his democratic vision, all people were infinitely equal; in his world, boundaries were just lines drawn on a map and religious creeds just words written in a book; in his universe everything was alive, connected, and filled with divine sparks. .... Those touched by his message must continue to oppose humanity's most tenacious and implacable foe, our voluntary imprisonment within our fears, our lies, and our hatreds. Let us take up Howard Thurman's battle against the hounds of hell."
I was moved in reading Eisenstadt's biography together with the earlier biography by Harvey. Thurman is a pivotal individual in 20th Century American life. Readers will benefit from getting to know him.
Robin Friedman
It is rare late in life to find a writer that becomes treasured, but I had the good fortune in finding such a writer in Howard Thurman. Thurman (1899 -- 1980) was an African American mystic, educator, theologian, philosopher, and civil rights activist. I learned of Thurman through my study of Martin Luther King and through my interest in philosophical mysticism. Many other people are coming to share a fascination with Thurman. Late in 2020, Paul Harvey wrote his short biography, "Howard Thurman and the Disinherited: A Religious Biography." Within months, Peter Eisenstadt published this new more detailed biography, "Against the Hounds of Hell: A Life of Howard Thurman" (2021). Both Harvey's and Eisenstadt's books taught me a great deal and will reward reading by those interested in Thurman. This review is of the Eisenstadt volume.
Eisenstadt is a widely-published historian in a unique position to write a biography of Thurman. He was the co-author with Quinton Dixie of an earlier book about Thurman's trip to India, "Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence" (2011). For many years, he was the associate editor with the scholar of religion Walter Fluker of the Howard Thurman Papers Project which resulted in the publication of five volumes of Thurman's papers and two volumes of his unpublished sermons. These volumes will be invaluable to students of Thurman, and Eisenstadt makes extensive use of them in his biography, together with a broad range of published and unpublished material by and about Thurman.
Thurman's work and life combine a deeply introspective philosophical mysticism and sense of unity in apparent diversity with a strong commitment to social activism, particularly as it involves the lives of African Americans and of downtrodden people everywhere. Eisenstadt discusses both the mystical and the activist components of Thurman, but gives a strong emphasis throughout the book on the latter. I have tended to see Thurman more as a spiritual seeker and teacher, and this role might have received more emphasis in the book.
The volume's title, "Against the Hounds of Hell" is taken from Thurman's most famous book, "Jesus and the Disinherited" (1949) which became a critical work for the Civil Rights Movement. Eisenstadt discusses the book in detail with a focus on fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three "hounds of hell" that Thurman describes as tracking the trail of the disinherited. Among many other things, Eisenstadt draws an insightful parallel between Thurman's hounds of hell and the hellhounds in a source Thurman probably didn't know: the "Hellhounds on my Trail" in the iconic song by bluesman Robert Johnson. Similar parallels and references run through and enhance Eisenstadt's book.
The biography begins in the middle of Thurman's life, in 1935-36, when he travelled to India with his wife and another couple as part of a "Negro Delegation". The importance of this trip to Thurman's work cannot be overstated and is the subject of Eisenstadt's earlier book on Thurman. The delegation became the first group of African Americans to meet Gandhi. While passing through the fabled Khyber Pass, Thurman experienced an epiphany which inspired him to create "a religious fellowship developed in America that was capable of cutting across all racial barriers, with a carry-over into the common life." Thurman would work towards the fulfillment of this vision in his role in establishing and leading the first interracial church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, in San Francisco. It was an ambitious and visionary ideal.
The remainder of the biography is presented chronologically, beginning with Thurman's childhood in the heavily segregated and poor community of Daytona, Florida, through his education and positions at Howard University, the Fellowship Church, Boston University, and the broader, untethered ministry in the last years of his life. The book closely intertwines the story of Thurman's life, including his long second marriage to Sue Bailey Thurman, and his friends and critical influences, with a consideration of his thought and writings. Thus many chapters begin with a biographical narrative followed by a discussion of Thurman's key writings from the period. Among the writings of Thurman that receive close discussion are "Jesus and the Disinherited", mentioned above, his thesis at Rochester Theological Seminary which focused on sexuality, the studies of the Negro Spirituals, "Deep River and the Negro Speaks of Life and Death", the account of the early years of the Fellowship Church, "Footprints of a Dream", his discussion of spiritual growth in "Disciplines of the Spirit", his late discussion of segregation at the close of the Civil Rights Era, "The Luminous Darknes" the attempt to summarize his mystical and social philosophy in "The Search for Common Ground", and his autobiography completed just before his death, "With Head and Heart." Eisenstadt's discussion of his sources is always insightful and should encourage readers of the biography to explore some of these works for themselves.
The book describes well the influences on Thurman and those whom he greatly influenced. The former group includes the South African novelist and feminist Olive Schreiner, whom Thurman studied throughout his life, as well as the Quaker mystic and philosopher Rufus Jones. The latter group includes a spectrum of individuals, including Martin Luther King, Jr. the Jewish thinker Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Walter Pankhe, James Farmer, Jesse Jackson, and many other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Thurman's influence continues. He may ultimately be remembered, in my view, more for his spirituality and mysticism than for his political commitments and his role as an advocate for civil rights, crucial and important as these are.
Eisenstadt clearly loves his subject and understands Thurman well, writing, with an allusion to the title of Thurman's anthology of the writings of Olive Schreiner that "[f]or the past quarter century, with a few extended breaks, I have been trying to take the measure of this extraordinary man. What began as a job has become a calling and a mission, my track to the water's edge." The book is clearly, if densely written, and benefits from slow reading. The endnotes refer to and expand upon the many sources discussed in the text, many of which merit pursuing on their own. The biography concludes with an eloquent summary of Thurman's vision and of his continued importance which reads in part.
"In his democratic vision, all people were infinitely equal; in his world, boundaries were just lines drawn on a map and religious creeds just words written in a book; in his universe everything was alive, connected, and filled with divine sparks. .... Those touched by his message must continue to oppose humanity's most tenacious and implacable foe, our voluntary imprisonment within our fears, our lies, and our hatreds. Let us take up Howard Thurman's battle against the hounds of hell."
I was moved in reading Eisenstadt's biography together with the earlier biography by Harvey. Thurman is a pivotal individual in 20th Century American life. Readers will benefit from getting to know him.
Robin Friedman
July 13, 2021
Summary: Most extensive biography of Howard Thurman to date.
My personal work on understanding spiritual formation and mysticism and my separate work on racial issues make Thurman a natural focus. So I will keep working through Thurman's sermons and then read Disciplines of the Spirit and In Search for Common Ground.
I have been on a project to understand Howard Thurman over the past several years. I have read two collections of his sermons, his autobiography, a shorter religious biography, and his Jesus and the Disinherited twice. Peter Eisenstadt is well qualified to write this biography. He has an earlier book on Thurman's trip to India and meeting Gandhi and, with Walter Fluker, is the editor of the Papers of Howard Thruman project. They have released five volumes of Thurman's papers, and the second volume of his sermons will release next month. I am slowly working through the first book of his sermons from that collection.
Howard Thurman is one of the most important figures in 20th-century Black history that many people have not heard of. Thurman was born in 1899. His grandmother, who played an important role in raising Thurman, had been enslaved. Thurman was extraordinary, a mystic, called one of the best preachers of the 20th century by Time Magazine in the 1950s, an academic, a popularizer of non-violence, and a mentor and spiritual director to many. One of the reasons that many do not know of Thurman is that he resisted public leadership within the civil rights movement. Thurman was at Morehouse with MLK Sr, and his wife Sue Bailey Thurman was roommates at Spellman with Alberta Williams King. Similar to his role as mentor to MLK, much of his most influential work was private mentoring and spiritual direction to students or friends.
Part of what Eisenstadt, and Paul Harvey in the earlier biography, made clear is that Thurman did not believe he was successful in any of his major projects. Thurman co-started one of the first intentionally interracial churches in the US in San Francisco in 1944. After nine years, he hit a frustration point and went to Boston University as the Dean of the Chapel and a professor. At Boston University, he was able to develop a course in mysticism that was influential but was frustrated by the bureaucracy of the university and his inability to turn the chapel into the interracial and interreligious fellowship he desired to. The 15 years after Thurman's retirement continued his writing and allowed him to mentor many, including Jessie Jackson and Derrick Bell, and many others.
Against the Hounds of Hell gave much more nuance and detail to Thurman's life than any of the previous books on Thurman I have read. While I think it is the best biography of Thurman I have read, it is also long, so I am not sure I would use it as a starting point. But the discussion of Thurman's books and the progression of his thinking over time was constructive in contextualizing Thruman over time.
My personal work on understanding spiritual formation and mysticism and my separate work on racial issues make Thurman a natural focus. So I will keep working through Thurman's sermons and then read Disciplines of the Spirit and In Search for Common Ground.
October 25, 2022
"Against the Hounds of Hell: A Life of Howard Thurman was referred to me by a friend who thought I would not only enjoy the work by Peter Eisenstadt but that it would support ideas and fill in the history that he knew was already a part of my life. I plan to write my Facebook Friend and thank him for telling me about this biography of Howard Thurman. I have a Howard Thurman quote from the book which was told to Eisenstadt, by Nathan I. Huggins. I think the quote sums up the man and this work. "What is remarkable about much that is called black culture. . . is its Americaness, and conversely, much of what is considered most uniquely American is essentially Afro-American.
September 30, 2024
From a biographical standpoint, this book was well-researched, incredibly well-written, and more academic than prose. I have heard Thurman’s name mentioned throughout the years and have always wanted to know more about his life, so I was really grateful to have read this book. He is truly fascinating, and has challenging ideas on many subjects that are worth wrestling with even today.
June 26, 2021
It was good but long and complex. Any book with 150 pages of footnotes is not really my style. And I still didn't feel that I knew him; the focus was on his work which is, of course, why we have books about him.
April 16, 2022
The most complete book yet on this great man
I am a big Howard Thurman fan. I have read his autobiography and several books by and about him. This one is the most detailed exploration of his life and work yet. Very well done!
I am a big Howard Thurman fan. I have read his autobiography and several books by and about him. This one is the most detailed exploration of his life and work yet. Very well done!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews