Howard Thurman (1899–1981) was a Methodist clergyman and educator who wrote over 20 books, including his most famous work, Jesus and the Disinherited. This book and its examination of Jesus’s nonviolent responses to oppression deeply influenced civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., who studied it during the Montgomery bus boycott. Thurman was a professor of theology and dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in Washington, DC. Later, he served as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University until 1965. This letter was written in response to a message from Mr. Leonard Fulton. In it, Thurman writes, “Never have I been so stirred by any letter from any person as I was by the reading of your letter which reached me today.”