Publisher's Synopsis
Famously known as the text that shaped Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent philosophy during the civil rights movement, this faith-based manual empowers readers to combat injustice with compassion. Amidst national protests against racial injustice, Jesus and the Disinherited is as relevant today as it was during the civil right movement. Howard Thurman echoes the teachings of Jesus to reach past anger and distrust toward a vision of unity, and reminds us that hatred does not empower-it decays the soul and the world around us. Only through self-love and love of one another can God's justice prevail. The civil rights leader returns to the roots of Christianity and the story of Jesus, an impoverished, heavily persecuted Jew who was poor, disinherited, and dispossessed. Yet despite his conditions, Jesus believed that fear and hostility could be counteracted with radical love. Thurman links Jesus's struggles to the discrimination and violence that Black Americans experience today and argues that Jesus has always been a partner to the oppressed-not a tool of the privileged to embolden tyranny and hatred. With a new foreword by acclaimed womanist theologian Kelly Brown Douglas, the gift edition of Jesus and the Disinherited is a timeless text that empowers the disempowered and demonstrates how the oppressed can use compassion to combat hate and demand equal treatment. Having witnessed firsthand the depths of white supremacy and the heights of human civility, Thurman reiterates the inherent dignity of all of God's children, regardless of class or race.
