Reviewed by: The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman. Volume 5: The Wider Ministry, January 1963–April 1981 ed. by Walter Earl Fluker Juan M. Floyd-Thomas The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman. Volume 5: The Wider Ministry, January 1963–April 1981. Edited by Walter Earl Fluker. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. xcvi, 336. $59.99, ISBN 978-1-61117-949-1.) Although greatly anticipated and warmly welcomed, this book’s publication is also extremely bittersweet. On one hand, this fifth and final volume of The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman is a landmark achievement. On the other hand, this book’s arrival serves as a somber reminder of the absence of a complex and compelling spiritual figure like Howard Washington Thurman at a time when American society has been shaken to its core by the so-called culture wars, which have fueled a deeply polarized political landscape since Thurman’s death nearly forty years ago. No matter how eagerly anticipated this volume has been, this realization does nothing to blunt the overall weight that accompanies the inevitable end of this invaluable, decade-long documentary project. [End Page 533] Titled The Wider Ministry, Volume 5 covers the later years of Thurman’s life, from his retirement in January 1963 until his death in April 1981. Thematically, this volume hinges on a concise yet pivotal question: namely, what is the meaning of success for an extraordinary figure such as Thurman? In their beautifully written biographical essay, the project editors, under Walter Earl Fluker’s sagacious leadership, assert that this phase of Thurman’s life enabled him to focus on his own hopes and dreams unfettered by attachments to any institution, either sacred or secular. This volume illustrates the various ways that Thurman and his devotees sought to guarantee that his sermons, seminars, and scholarly writings would endure for generations to come. But, as the concluding biographical essay and subsequent evidentiary materials demonstrate, Thurman and his most die-hard supporters were continuously challenged in their efforts to establish greater prominence for him and his teachings in the public consciousness. In addition to the publishing of his final three books—The Luminous Darkness: A Personal Interpretation of the Anatomy of Segregation and the Ground of Hope (1965), The Search for Common Ground (1971), and With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman (1979)—this period was further marked by Thurman and his colleagues creating listening rooms and seminars to bolster the dissemination of his ideas beyond the confines of traditional church or academic contexts. Most significant, he and his wife, Sue Bailey Thurman, established the Howard Thurman Educational Trust as a mechanism to advance educational opportunities for young African Americans in accordance with the religious worldview and spiritual disciplines he had advanced throughout his lifetime. Thurman was noteworthy as a prophetic champion of racial justice, gender equality, Christian mysticism, and national identity, but this book also reveals some facets of his purview that might be considered rather unexpected both then and now. For example, in a letter dated July 2, 1969, to the Reverend Frank Wilson, a longtime Presbyterian Church official and good friend, Thurman openly ridiculed James Forman’s demand for reparations from churches, claiming, “who am I to compete with the prophet of the 21st Century, Foreman [sic]” (p. 203). Later, Thurman jokingly remarked that Forman’s “cohorts invaded [the Presbyterian Church’s] headquarters while he [Forman] himself was ‘manifestoing’ on the floor of the General Assembly” (p. 203). Given Forman’s pivotal role in advancing the Black Manifesto, a boldly prophetic document by Black Power activists calling for $500 million from white American churches and synagogues as reparations for chattel slavery, it is rather surprising that Thurman was so dismissive of the movement’s tactics and goals. On the whole, it is difficult to understand Thurman’s opposition to and disdain for the proposals and postures of the young generation of Black Power advocates. Nevertheless, it is not in spite of, but because of, such a seeming paradox that this volume will provide attentive scholars and students countless opportunities to contemplate Thurman’s vast scholarly and spiritual legacy well into the future. [End Page 534] Juan M...