Howard Thurman’s 1949 book Jesus and the Disinherited was very influential on Martin Luther King Jr. If you don’t know much about Thurman or that book, you can read the piece I wrote on it last year. Better yet, read the actual book. It’s only about 100 pages long, and Thurman demonstrates a deep understanding of hatred, discrimination, and fear — and the ethic of love that Jesus modeled as a better way forward.
Conservatives rightly oppose critical race theory being taught in K–12 schools, and racial essentialism is a betrayal of King’s legacy. The Left has created a strawman argument that says conservatives don’t want to teach about racism at all. Conservatives need to make sure that stays a strawman. Assigning Jesus and the Disinherited would be a good alternative to CRT-infused reading.
Yes, Jesus is in the title, but Thurman’s work speaks to Christians and non-Christians alike. In fact, the book will likely prove more challenging to a Christian reader because Thurman shines a bright light on the dark side of American Christianity, which was far too tolerant of racial discrimination for far too long.
His prose is accessible, and he references many other literary works, from Shakespeare to African-American spirituals, that students could engage with as well. Jesus and the Disinherited is a rich book, and its influence on King’s civil-rights activism is immediately apparent to readers. We’d be much better off as a country if more people read Thurman, and fewer people read Robin DiAngelo.