Howard Thurman - Major Speaker Address (January 23, 1979)

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-	Duke Chapel, Howard Thurman address.	0:04
	Tuesday, January 23, 1979.	0:06
-	Good afternoon everyone, I'd like to welcome you here	0:14
	as the Theologian in Residence program continues.	0:16
	Today Dr. Howard Thurman will address the topic	0:19
	The Experience of Human Freedom.	0:21
	We are fortunate to have Dr. Thurman	0:24
	in residence at Duke this month.	0:26
	He has undoubtedly had a significant impact	0:28
	on American life.	0:30
	As Dean Emeritus of Marsh Chapel, Boston University,	0:32
	his ministry has extended throughout the U.S.,	0:35
	as well as to the new countries of Asia and Africa.	0:38
	Under Dr. Thurman's leadership as co-founder of the Church	0:41
	for Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco,	0:45
	the church became the first to be fully integrated	0:48
	in leadership and membership during the late forties	0:51
	and early fifties.	0:53
	Dr. Thurman was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1900,	0:54
	and received his formal education at Morehouse College,	0:58
	Colgate Rochester Theological Seminar,	1:02
	and Haverford College.	1:04
	In 1961, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust	1:06
	was established to provide support for religious,	1:09
	charitable, scientific, literary, and educational causes.	1:12
	Literature about the trust will be available	1:17
	following this speech.	1:20
	I'd like to add that because Dr. Thurman	1:21
	is not feeling as well as he'd like,	1:23
	he'll not be available for discussion afterwards,	1:25
	he'll have to return directly to his hotel.	1:27
	At this time I'd like to welcome Dr. Howard Thurman.	1:30
	(applause)	1:33
-	I will start out standing up but I may end sitting down.	1:44
	The experience of human freedom,	1:54
	it is a strange freedom, to be adrift in the world of men	2:04
	without a sense of anchor anywhere.	2:09
	Always there is the need of mooring,	2:14
	the need for the firm grip on something	2:19
	that is rigid and will not give.	2:25
	(clears throat)	2:30
	The urge to be accountable to someone,	2:32
	to know that beyond the individual himself,	2:38
	there is an answer that must be given, cannot be denied.	2:41
	The deeds a man performs must be	2:48
	weighed in a balance held by another's hand.	2:53
	They very spirit of a man tends to panic	2:58
	from the desolation.	3:04
	(Coordinator speaks off microphone)	3:09
	Well maybe, let me try to relax this business.	3:13
-	The problem is the sounds is, it's going out from here.	3:18
-	Yeah, I hear it.	3:21
-	If we move down to that space, and then put you	3:22
	in the pulpit, then we'll be able to hear you.	3:26
	(audience members chattering, suggest alternatives)	3:30
-	Well if I could stand right there.	3:33
-	Okay, stand right here.	3:36
-	Then I don't need to be bothered with that.	3:38
	(audience speaking)	3:41
	I see.	3:44
	(audience speaking)	3:45
	Well he mentioned that.	3:47
	(audience laughs)	3:48
-	The very spirit of a man, can you hear now?	3:55
-	Yes.	3:58
-	The very spirit of a man tends to panic	3:59
	from the desolation	4:02
	of going nameless up and down	4:05
	the streets of other minds,	4:08
	where no salutation greets,	4:13
	and no friendly recognition makes secure.	4:17
	It is a strange feeling to be adrift in a world of man,	4:22
	always a way must be found for bringing	4:26
	into one solitary place	4:31
	the subtle look from another's face.	4:34
	For getting the quiet	4:38
	sanction of another's grace	4:41
	to undergird the meaning of the self.	4:46
	To be ignored,	4:51
	to be passed over as of no account and as of no means,	4:55
	is to be made into a freed slave's fate,	5:01
	not a man's.	5:08
	It is better to be the complete victim of an anger	5:11
	and a strain, and a wrath that knows no bounds.	5:14
	To be torn asunder without mercy,	5:21
	or battered to a pulp by angry violence,	5:25
	than to be passed over as if one were not.	5:30
	Here at least one is with dealt with,	5:36
	encountered, vanquished or overwhelmed,	5:40
	but not ignored.	5:45
	It is a strange freedom to go nameless up and down	5:48
	the streets of other minds, where no salutation greets,	5:51
	and no sign is given to mark the place one calls one's own.	5:55
	The name marks the claim	6:01
	a man's stakes against the world.	6:05
	It is the private banner under which he moves,	6:10
	which is his right, whatever else betides.	6:15
	The name is a man's watermark, above which the tides	6:20
	will never rise.	6:26
	It is the thing he holds	6:28
	that keeps him in the way	6:33
	when every light has faded, and every marker	6:38
	has been destroyed.	6:43
	To be made anonymous,	6:47
	and to give to it the acquiescence	6:51
	of the heart, is to live without language.	6:54
	And for such a one, even death is no dying.	7:00
	To be known, to be called by one's name,	7:08
	is to find one's place,	7:13
	and hold it against all the	7:16
	hordes of hell.	7:20
	This is to know one's value	7:24
	for oneself alone.	7:28
	It is to honor and act as one's very own.	7:32
	It is to live a life that is one's very own.	7:37
	It is to bow before an altar that is one's very own.	7:42
	It is to worship a god who is one's very own.	7:47
	It is a strange freedom to be adrift in the world of men,	7:52
	to act with no accounting, to go nameless up and down	7:57
	the streets of other minds, where no salutation greets,	8:02
	and no sign is given to mark the place	8:07
	one calls one's own.	8:11
	The experience of human freedom.	8:26
	Give me the strength to be free,	8:32
	and to endure the burden of freedom,	8:39
	and the loneliness of those without chains.	8:46
	Give me the strength to be free,	8:53
	and to endure the burden of freedom,	8:58
	and the loneliness of those without chains.	9:02
	In my thought, freedom is an experience of being.	9:10
	It is quality, therefore,	9:17
	and not, of necessity, quantity.	9:22
	And in my thought there is, what seems to me there	9:28
	to be a radical distinction between liberty and freedom.	9:31
	Liberty is that which is	9:40
	conferred upon another,	9:46
	or for a group,	9:49
	from within the context of certain	9:54
	presuppositions and values.	9:57
	It may be a gratuity or it may be a right.	10:04
	It can be withdrawn	10:10
	as it can be conferred.	10:14
	Freedom is of a different variety,	10:24
	that's the wrong word.	10:30
	Freedom is of a different quality, that's the word.	10:31
	In essence,	10:43
	freedom is	10:46
	a sense of alternatives,	10:49
	a sense of options.	10:56
	I do not suggest that,	11:06
	at any given moment in time,	11:09
	the individual may be in a position to	11:13
	opt the option, I did not say that.	11:17
	But freedom is a sense,	11:21
	a feel of options,	11:24
	a sense of alternatives.	11:30
	When I was a boy in Florida,	11:38
	the traveling preacher	11:42
	who made a most profound impression on me was a man	11:44
	who came to our little community,	11:48
	and described a journey,	11:51
	is what it was, it was a journey, it was a visitation,	11:56
	presently-conducted visitation to hell.	11:59
	He was not a citizen of the community,	12:05
	but he was shown around.	12:11
	We came to a large dance hall,	12:17
	and there were couples dancing,	12:23
	and they had to dance forever	12:28
	and forever and forever, and with the same partner.	12:32
	(audience laughing)	12:37
	That made it hell.	12:39
	(audience laughing)	12:42
	All options frozen.	12:44
	And the other place, to which he was carried was	12:54
	a huge pavilion or auditorium,	12:58
	or something of that sort.	13:02
	There were four people playing cards at a table,	13:05
	and they were playing a game that was familiar	13:09
	in those days called Five Up.	13:12
	And they had to sit there and play cards	13:16
	forever and ever and ever.	13:21
	The sense,	13:28
	I can't emphasize this too much,	13:32
	the sense of option,	13:36
	the feel of option.	13:39
	This is why man or communities	13:50
	or nations may be held	13:53
	in subjection	13:58
	with all alternatives cut off from them	14:02
	for years and years and years, but as long as there is	14:07
	at the center of the community, or the individual,	14:10
	a sense of freedom, a sense of option,	14:15
	then the dictator is uneasy.	14:21
	I was going huckleberry picking....	14:27
	You'll pardon the way my mind is floating with you,	14:32
	I don't...and you do the best you can.	14:36
	(audience laughing)	14:41
	But I am staying on the point.	14:43
	But I pooh-pooh with it in my way because I don't have	14:48
	too much energy.	14:51
	I was going huckleberry picking with my sister	14:55
	who was a little older, and I was always trying	14:57
	to impress her with the fact that she kept me	14:59
	from growing up.	15:02
	She always insisted that I was her little baby brother,	15:05
	even though I was, well, I weighed more than she did,	15:11
	I was man, and she was just a...	15:17
	She wasn't a man.	15:20
	(audience laughing)	15:23
	So we were going down this country road and	15:26
	I noticed a tiny baby snake,	15:31
	about that size,	15:37
	going on his business across the road,	15:40
	and I knew how she felt about any creeping thing,	15:43
	so I called her attention to this,	15:49
	and I said, "To show you that I'm not afraid,	15:51
	"I will stand on this snake with my bare foot."	15:54
	And I did!	16:01
	The weight of my body made it impossible	16:03
	for the snake to move,	16:08
	but there came up an arrhythmic	16:10
	pattern of sequences,	16:13
	wave after wave of feeling as he shuddered.	16:17
	He couldn't move, but he could do this.	16:21
	And as long as he could do that, he was free.	16:25
	(claps hands)	16:30
	This is what I'm talking about.	16:31
	Now	16:36
	if I give that up,	16:41
	all the world may be mine,	16:53
	and I am still enslaved.	16:58
	You get the picture now.	17:12
	Freedom carries with it	17:16
	a peculiar kind of responsibility	17:22
	and I want to dwell on that, and I'll be through.	17:25
	The first kind of responsibility	17:31
	is a responsibility	17:36
	for one's own actions,	17:39
	whether one is able to act	17:51
	on the action at any given moment in time.	17:56
	When our two daughters were very small,	18:05
	Mrs. Thurman decided that	18:10
	I needed to be a little	18:14
	more domesticated than I was,	18:17
	so I was the official	18:20
	babysitter for the month of July.	18:24
	(audience laughing)	18:27
	And she went about her own business.	18:28
	But I arranged it so that the first two weeks	18:31
	in July, I would spend in Florida with my mother.	18:35
	(audience laughing)	18:39
	And the last two weeks in July, I would spend	18:40
	in Arkansas with Mrs. Thurman's mother.	18:43
	(audience laughing)	18:46
	The first time that I took our two daughters to Florida,	18:48
	I took them around to show them all of my haunts,	18:53
	where my old oyster bed was in Halifax River,	18:59
	where I used to tie my boat, the place in the river	19:04
	where I was baptized as a boy, all of these things.	19:09
	I wanted to give them a sense of involvement	19:13
	in the process that had created their father.	19:17
	And as we walked along, we came by a high school.	19:23
	And there were swings and seesaws,	19:28
	whatever those things are.	19:32
	And our daughter said, "Oh, daddy, there are swings	19:34
	"over there, let's go swing!"	19:37
	And I said to them,	19:41
	"You can't swing in those swings."	19:44
	And they said, "Why?"	19:50
	I said, "When we get home, and we are drinking	19:53
	"our lemonades and resting, I will tell you why."	19:59
	So when we got home and we were resting,	20:05
	our younger daughter, who subsequently became a lawyer,	20:08
	(audience laughing)	20:13
	said "Now, daddy, we are home, we are resting,	20:14
	"we are drinking the lemonade, tell us."	20:19
	And I will tell you what I told them.	20:24
	I said, "It takes the state laws of Florida,	20:29
	"it takes the state legislature of Florida,	20:35
	"it takes all the judges, all the courts,	20:39
	"most of the policemen, all the sheriffs,	20:42
	"most of the institutions of learning,	20:45
	"a large number of churches, it takes all of those people	20:50
	"to keep two little girls from swinging in those swings.	20:54
	"That's how important you are."	20:59
	(audience acknowledges)	21:01
	And then I said, "I'll tell you a story from the Bible."	21:05
	"There was a time when human beings were much wiser	21:12
	"and smarter than they are today.	21:15
	"And there were two groups, the Philistines and the	21:19
	"Judahites, and they were enemies.	21:24
	"And they were going to fight, but some smart person	21:30
	"said, 'Now why must we kill ourselves off?	21:34
	"'Why not let us select one person from this group	21:39
	"'and one person from that group, and let these	21:44
	"'people fight, and we'll cheer.'"	21:46
	(audience laughing)	21:50
	"So Goliath was selected to represent the Philistines,	21:54
	"and David to represent the Judahites.	21:59
	"Goliath, with his short sword and his long sword,	22:07
	"his breastplate, his armor covering exposed parts	22:11
	"of his anatomy,	22:15
	that's what he thought of David.	22:20
	"David, in his shirttails,	22:29
	no sandals, a slingshot	22:35
	"with a stone in it, that's all he thought of Goliath.	22:39
	"And when Goliath saw that, he had a stroke."	22:43
	(audience laughing)	22:48
	I must keep alive	23:08
	a sense of my	23:17
	own responsibility	23:22
	for my own actions.	23:28
	For whoever is able	23:40
	to take responsibility for my actions,	23:43
	to that person do I yield	23:48
	the power of veto and certification over my life.	23:54
	I think this is the timeless insight in the legend	24:03
	in our tradition about George Washington	24:07
	and the cherry tree.	24:09
	"I did it with my little hatchet."	24:13
	Something profound.	24:19
	And as long as that stands at the core of the	24:22
	sense of responsibility for one's own deeds,	24:26
	there is hope	24:29
	for the national light	24:33
	and for the individuals who are involved in the tradition.	24:36
	Now that's enough.	24:51
	The second kind of responsibility, I want to	24:55
	dwell upon just for a minute or two	24:57
	and then I'm through.	24:59
	Now this is what got them, please hear the words.	25:02
	It is the sense, the making	25:07
	of a sense of responsibility	25:12
	for my reaction	25:15
	to the events of my life.	25:20
	This is critical,	25:24
	for we are surrounded always	25:29
	by impersonal forces over which we are unable to	25:31
	exercise any control whatsoever.	25:36
	In a rather authentic sense,	25:39
	we are, all of us, victims	25:42
	of the vast, impersonal world that nature	25:47
	does not know that	25:51
	I was sitting 36 hours	25:55
	in the railroad station in Chicago,	25:58
	that awful place that God made, but forgot.	26:00
	(audience laughing)	26:04
	The temperature didn't know I was there.	26:10
	It didn't know that I was on my way to Duke,	26:14
	and that I, and that the whole schedule was fouled up,	26:18
	and that I was freezing	26:21
	and getting a bad cold	26:26
	and it didn't know anything about that.	26:30
	There is something so vast and impersonal	26:36
	about the world of nature that it just doesn't	26:40
	quite know how to convey	26:44
	to me that it knows	26:49
	that I'm here.	26:53
	I was in a snowstorm in western New York when I	26:55
	was in school up there,	26:58
	and I got off at the wrong place there one night,	27:00
	and when I stepped off this thing, I came up snow	27:04
	halfway up my thigh, and they'd called about	27:07
	this business and there was nobody to meet me,	27:10
	I was in the wrong place.	27:13
	And I knew that it must be a crossing,	27:16
	so I started walking to the left and getting	27:19
	deeper and deeper in snow,	27:24
	and the blizzard was coming down so that	27:25
	I could hardly see my hand in front of me,	27:27
	and I began to think first, and then to feel,	27:31
	to feel first, and then to think,	27:36
	that I was going to die, and nobody would know it.	27:39
	So I began to address the blizzard.	27:46
	(audience laughing)	27:49
	I said "I'm a young man,	27:52
	at the beginning of my career,	27:56
	"the whole world is opening up before me,	27:59
	"and I'm too young to die, I haven't begun to live."	28:01
	The only thing the blizzard did was just to	28:05
	keep on blizzarding.	28:08
	(audience laughing)	28:10
	There was no way.	28:12
	And I was trying to put the face of a man	28:15
	on this impersonal	28:21
	dimensional world of nature, so that there would be	28:23
	something with which I could treat, something	28:26
	with which I could deal.	28:30
	Bear in mind what I say, the second form of	28:46
	responsibility for the free person is	28:51
	a sense of responsibility for your	28:56
	reaction to the events of your life.	29:01
	Granted, that I may not be able to change them.	29:07
	Somewhere deep within me,	29:17
	I must not give up	29:22
	the inner authority which is mine to say	29:25
	yes or no.	29:28
	Responsibility for my reactions	29:34
	to the events of my life.	29:40
	And this is true not only with reference to the	29:46
	world of nature, but is also true with reference	29:48
	to the social order about which we are surrounded.	29:51
	There's something about the vast impersonal social	29:56
	and economic order that simply does not know	30:00
	that I am hungry or that I'm naked.	30:04
	It can't take into account	30:11
	the private entity	30:16
	by which I define the authenticity of myself.	30:18
	When we lived in Ohio, Oberlin, it's a convenient	30:29
	stopping place between Chicago and Cleveland,	30:33
	and I didn't know that we had so many friends.	30:38
	Two o'clock in the morning, before a Sunday sermon,	30:42
	"We're just driving through Oberlin and we remembered	30:45
	"that you lived here, and we just thought	30:48
	"we'd give you a ring."	30:50
	And you would say,	30:56
	after you reduce the confusion	30:57
	to a manageable unit, you would greet them	31:03
	and say "Well I'm sure you must be hungry,	31:07
	"come by and have some coffee, and eggs and bacon."	31:13
	(audience laughing)	31:17
	Three o'clock in the morning.	31:19
	I remember one morning this happened,	31:22
	the day before that, the day before I had	31:25
	gone to the store to get some eggs for a special	31:28
	something for the sermon I wanted to do,	31:31
	we used all the eggs for these lovely visitors.	31:36
	(audience laughing)	31:41
	And the next morning I had to go and get some more eggs.	31:45
	But this time, the merchant took them from	31:49
	the same place, but because they cost four cents	31:53
	more a dozen than they did the afternoon before.	31:57
	In the interval, I had been as kind to my wife	32:01
	as I knew how, I'd been a good father,	32:04
	I'd been a good citizen, whatever else it was.	32:06
	But it made no difference.	32:09
	The vast, impersonal economic order	32:13
	could not bring itself to bear	32:19
	upon my private dilemma,	32:23
	and I had to fight for the integrity of myself	32:26
	in the midst of this kind of vast, impersonal arrangement	32:31
	if I were to be free.	32:36
	This is enough.	32:43
	Freedom is a sense	32:49
	of alternatives, a sense of option.	32:57
	It is not, of necessity, the ability at any given	33:03
	moment in time, to exercise the option.	33:08
	I do not say that.	33:12
	But it is to hold the sense of	33:15
	option at the ready,	33:19
	which says always, always	33:23
	there is available an alternative	33:31
	that carries with it two kinds of responsibility:	33:42
	one, the responsibility for one's own action,	33:47
	one's own sense,	33:52
	the second, the responsibility for my reaction	33:56
	to the events of my life over which I am unable	34:02
	to exercise any control whatsoever.	34:07
	And he or she who would be free	34:16
	must keep alive	34:22
	a dead certainty,	34:25
	a feeling, a notion, an awareness,	34:30
	that whatever my circumstances, my condition,	34:36
	my situation may be at any given moment in time,	34:39
	it does not exhaust	34:44
	what the possibilities of life are for me.	34:48
	Give me the strength to be free,	34:54
	and to endure	35:01
	the burden of freedom,	35:04
	and the loneliness	35:10
	of those without chains.	35:15
	(audience applauds)	35:22
	Thank you.	35:33
-	Thank you, Dr. Thurman.	35:48
	We've already been thankful that he made the horrible	35:50
	trip through the snow to get here, and we have been	35:55
	blessed by your presence.	36:00
-	Thank you very much.	36:04
-	He will speak in the morning at 9:20 in York Chapel,	36:04
	you will be able to hear him without straining.	36:08
	We want to remind you again that his books	36:12
	are on sale at the Gothic Bookstore.	36:16
	Some of you, I see your little sack.	36:18
	She's already bought 'em, but they did order	36:22
	a special supply for us.	36:24
	Thank you, again, Dr. Thurman.	36:28
	We love you.	36:29
-	Thank you very much.	36:31
	(audience applauds)	36:32
	Well, I made it.	36:37
-	You made it.	36:38
	The secretary has written out your manuscript.	36:40
	Now, do you want to read it, or do you want her	36:43
	to read it?	36:46
-	Which one?	36:47

Item Info

Title:

Howard Thurman - Major Speaker Address (January 23, 1979)

Description:

Freedom is a sense, a feeling that other ways of living and acting are possible. This does not mean that one can, in fact, realize these possibilities, but the very sense of their possibility maintains the freedom of one's soul. With this freedom, though, one is burdened with two attendant responsibilities: 1.) The responsibility for one's own actions; and 2.) The responsibility for one's reaction to the events of one's life. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 01:44. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 35:36.
Key quotation: “He or she who would be free must keep alive a dead certainty, a feeling, a notion, an awareness that whatever my circumstances, my condition, my situation may be at any given moment in time, it does not exhaust what the possibilities of life are for me.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4dn40959

Date:

January 23, 1979

Speaker:

Thurman, Howard, 1900-1981

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-1001
ref7211_qql
uachapelsermaud
duke:321142
dcrau001881
ark:/87924/r4dn40959
3fa0dc04-76ee-4ba9-800c-c0bb4e6229c6

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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