The Fallen and the Forgotten: Henry Brooks, Howard Thurman, and All Sheroes and Heroes of Long Ago

Abstract

This article results from an invitation. It is a certain reflection upon a movement in pastoral care during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. If it is the case that typically very little historical perspectives enter pastoral care analysis, then this article attempts a corrective. The picture above invites us to think in terms of a visual metaphor. There is evidence of a pathway through the terrain toward the sea, and various plant life, big and small size lava rocks. Some appear to be standing or fallen and covered by the rising tide of the sea. Still others may not be seen at all- even with a receding sea. All co-exist within a larger, yet changing environment of things, which include sky, sand, sea and all that is invisible. Therefore, pastoral care is encouraged to pay close attention to detail and gestalt. Nothing stands alone. This article features collective, systemic and reciprocal effects, an early, perhaps invisible or yet-to-be-recognized pastoral care influence upon Edward Powell Wimberly, a prolific African American pastoral theologian. In-order to appreciate E.P. Wimberly’s contribution and see things more clearly, one needs to situate them within an interpretive frame work or enlarged and still unfolding “picture”. I argue that it takes historical perspectives and a lot of people over a period of time, seen and unseen to influence a thought-shift in an entire paradigm. But, the collective efforts of many contributors to a paradigm shift may have been overlooked or ignored, fallen and forgotten.