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{{Short description|American historian and pastor}}
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{{infobox person
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2020}}
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|name = Vincent Harding
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{{Infobox person
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|image = Vincent-Harding.jpg
| honorific_prefix = [[The Reverend]]
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|birth_name = Vincent Gordon Harding
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| name = Vincent Harding
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|birth_date = {{birth date|1931|7|25}}
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| image = Vincent-Harding.jpg
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|birth_place = [[Harlem]], [[New York (state)|New York]], U.S.
| image_size = 250px
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|death_date = {{death date and age|2014|5|19|1931|7|25}}
| alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software -->
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|death_place = [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| caption =
|alma_mater = [[City College of New York]] <small>([[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]])</small><br/>[[Columbia University]] <small>([[Master of Science|M.S.]])</small><br/>[[University of Chicago]] <small>([[Master of Arts|M.A.]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]])</small>
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| birth_name = Vincent Gordon Harding
|occupation = Historian
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1931|7|25}}
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|notable_works = "[[Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence]]"
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| birth_place = [[New York City]], [[New York (state)|New York]], US
|spouse = Rosemarie Freeney<br/>Aljosie Aldrich Knight
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| death_date = {{death date and age|2014|5|19|1931|7|25}}
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| death_place = [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], US
| occupation = {{hlist | Pastor | historian | activist}}
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| notable_works = {{ubl | "[[Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence|Beyond Vietnam]]" (1967) | ''There Is a River'' (1981)}}
| movement = [[Civil rights movement]]
| spouse = {{ubl | {{marriage|Rosemarie Freeney|1960|2004|end=died}} | Aljosie Aldrich Harding}}
| module = {{Infobox clergy |child=yes
| religion = Christianity ([[Mennonite]])
| church =
| ordained =
| congregations =
| offices_held =
}}
}}
| module2 = {{Infobox academic |child=yes
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'''Vincent Gordon Harding''' (July 25, 1931{{spaced ndash}}May 19, 2014) was an [[African-American]] [[historian]] and a scholar of various topics with a focus on [[Religion in the United States|American religion]] and [[Society of the United States|society]]. A [[social activist]] as well, he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about Dr. [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as ''There Is A River'', ''Hope and History,'' and ''Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero,'' he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group [http://www.veteransofhope.org/ Veterans of Hope Project] and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Illiff School of Theology in [[Denver, Colorado]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nbccongress.org/publications/black-authors/vincent-harding.asp |title=Vincent Harding |access-date=2013-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130625062313/http://www.nbccongress.org/publications/black-authors/vincent-harding.asp |archive-date=2013-06-25 |dead-url=yes |df= }}</ref>
| non-academic = yes
| alma_mater = {{ubl | [[City College of New York|City College of New York, CUNY]] | [[Columbia University]] | [[University of Chicago]]}}
| thesis_title =
| thesis_year =
| school_tradition =
| doctoral_advisor = [[Martin E. Marty]]
| academic_advisors =
| influences = <!--must be referenced from a third-party source-->
| era =
| discipline = History
| sub_discipline = <!--academic discipline specialist area – e.g. Sub-atomic research, 20th-century Danish specialist, Pauline research, Arcadian and Ugaritic specialist-->
| workplaces = {{ubl | [[Spelman College]] | [[King Center for Nonviolent Social Change|Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center]] | [[Institute of the Black World]] | [[Iliff School of Theology]]}}
| doctoral_students = <!--only those with WP articles-->
| notable_students =
| main_interests =
| notable_works =
| notable_ideas =
| influenced = <!--must be referenced from a third-party source-->
}}
| signature =
| signature_alt =
}}
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'''Vincent Gordon Harding''' (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an [[African-American]] [[pastor]], [[historian]], and scholar of various topics with a focus on [[Religion in the United States|American religion]] and [[Society of the United States|society]]. A [[social activist]], he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as ''There Is A River'', ''Hope and History'', and ''Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero'', he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at [[Iliff School of Theology]] in [[Denver]], [[Colorado]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nbccongress.org/publications/black-authors/vincent-harding.asp |title=Vincent Harding |access-date=2013-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130625062313/http://www.nbccongress.org/publications/black-authors/vincent-harding.asp |archive-date=2013-06-25 |url-status=dead }}</ref> When Harding died on May 19, 2014, his daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Harding, publicly eulogized him on the Veterans of Hope Project website.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.veteransofhope.org/honoring-co-founder-vincent-harding/|title=Remembering Vincent Harding|date=2019-05-19|website=Veterans of Hope|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-29}}</ref>  


==Education==
==Education==
Harding was born in [[Harlem]], [[New York State|New York]],<ref>Johanna Shenk. [https://themennonite.org/feature/vincent-harding-dont-get-weary-though-way-long/ Vincent Harding: ‘Don’t get weary though the way be long’] The Mennonite. Nov. 21, 2014.</ref> and attended New York public schools, graduating from [[Morris High School (Bronx, New York)|Morris High School]] in [[the Bronx]] in 1948. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the [[City College of New York]], where he received a B.A. in History in 1952. The following year he graduated from [[Columbia University]], where he earned an M.S. in Journalism. Harding served in the [[U.S. Army]] from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 he received an M.A. in History at the [[University of Chicago]]. In 1965 he received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, where he was advised by [[Martin E. Marty]].
Harding was born on July 25, 1931, in [[Harlem]], [[New York State|New York]],<ref>Johanna Shenk. [https://themennonite.org/feature/vincent-harding-dont-get-weary-though-way-long/ Vincent Harding: ‘Don’t get weary though the way be long’] The Mennonite. Nov. 21, 2014.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Anders|first=Tisa|date=July 9, 2008|title=Vincent Gordon Harding (1931-2014)|url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/harding-vincent-gordon-1931/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-01-22|website=[[Black Past]]|language=en-US}}</ref> and attended New York public schools, graduating from [[Morris High School (Bronx, New York)|Morris High School]] in [[the Bronx]] in 1948. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the [[City College of New York]], where he received a [[Bachelor of Arts]] in history in 1952.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-05-31|title=Harding, Vincent Gordon|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/harding-vincent-gordon|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-01-23|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute|language=en}}</ref> The following year he graduated from [[Columbia University]], where he earned a [[Master of Science]] degree in journalism. Harding served in the [[US Army]] from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 he received a [[Master of Arts]] degree in history at the [[University of Chicago]]. In 1965 he received his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree in history from the University of Chicago, where he was advised by [[Martin E. Marty]].


==Career==
==Career==
In 1960, Harding and his wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, moved to [[Atlanta]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] to participate in the Southern Freedom Movement (also known as the [[American Civil Rights Movement]]) as representatives of the Mennonite Church. The Hardings co-founded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center and Movement gathering place in Atlanta. The couple traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s working as reconcilers, counselors and participants in the Movement, assisting the anti-segregation campaigns of the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC), the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC) and the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE). Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King, including King's famous anti-Vietnam speech, "[[A Time to Break Silence]]," which King delivered on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated.<ref name=la>{{cite web |author=Steve Chawkins| title = Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech | url = http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-vincent-harding-20140524-story.html |date= May 23, 2014| accessdate =June 10, 2015 | publisher = [[LA Times]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr.'s antiwar speech, dies |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/vincent-harding-author-of-martin-luther-king-jrs-antiwar-speech-dies/2014/05/22/9de4e31a-e1d1-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html|work=Washington Post|author=Matt Schudel|date= May 22, 2014|accessdate=June 10, 2015}}</ref>
In 1960, Harding and his wife, [[Rosemarie Freeney Harding]], moved to [[Atlanta]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], to participate in the [[Southern Freedom Movement]] as representatives of the Mennonite Church. The Hardings co-founded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center and movement gathering place in Atlanta. The couple traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s working as reconcilers, counselors and participants in the Movement, assisting the anti-segregation campaigns of the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC), the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC) and the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE). Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], including King's famous anti-Vietnam speech, "[[A Time to Break Silence]]", which King delivered on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated.<ref name=la>{{cite news |author=Steve Chawkins| title = Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech | url = http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-vincent-harding-20140524-story.html |date= May 23, 2014| access-date =June 10, 2015 | newspaper = [[LA Times]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/vincent-harding-author-of-martin-luther-king-jrs-antiwar-speech-dies/2014/05/22/9de4e31a-e1d1-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html |title=Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr's antiwar speech, dies |first=Matt |last=Schudel |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=2014-05-22 |access-date=2015-06-10}}</ref>


Harding taught at the [[University of Pennsylvania]], [[Spelman College]], [[Temple University]], [[Swarthmore College]], and [[Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation]]. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center and of the [[Institute of the Black World]], both located at Atlanta. He also became senior academic consultant for the [[PBS]] television series ''[[Eyes on the Prize]]''.
Harding taught at the [[University of Pennsylvania]], [[Spelman College]], [[Temple University]], [[Swarthmore College]], and [[Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation]]. In the months after [[Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.|King's 1968 assassination]], Harding worked with [[Coretta Scott King]] to set up the [[King Center for Nonviolent Social Change]] in Atlanta, and served as its first director.<ref name=KingEncyclo>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/harding-vincent-gordon |title=Biography: Harding, Vincent Gordon |encyclopedia=King Encyclopedia |date=May 31, 2017 |publisher=[[Stanford University#Research centers and institutes|Stanford University {{!}} Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute]] |access-date=2020-11-10}}</ref> During those same months in 1968, he worked with a group of scholars to set up Atlanta's [[Institute of the Black World]].<ref name=KingEncyclo/> He also became senior academic consultant for the [[PBS]] television series ''[[Eyes on the Prize]]''.


Harding served as Chairperson of the ''Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal'', located at the [[Iliff School of Theology]] in [[Denver]], [[Colorado]]. Harding taught at Iliff as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation from 1981 to 2004.
Harding served as chairperson of the ''Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal'', located at the [[Iliff School of Theology]] in [[Denver]], [[Colorado]]. He taught at Iliff as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation from 1981 to 2004.


==Beliefs and activism==
==Beliefs and activism==
Harding was a devout [[Christianity|Christian]] and believer in achieving racial and economic equality in the United States.<ref name=gosh/>
Harding was a devout [[Christianity|Christian]] and believer in achieving racial and economic equality in the United States.<ref name=gosh/> Harding was a [[Seventh-day Adventist]] pastor before becoming a [[Mennonite]] pastor.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shearer |first=Tobin Miller |date=2015 |title=A Prophet Pushed Out: Vincent Harding and the Mennonites |url=http://ml.bethelks.edu/issue/vol-69/article/a-prophet-pushed-out-vincent-harding-and-the-menno/ |url-status=dead |journal=Mennonite Life |volume=69 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031103559/http://ml.bethelks.edu/issue/vol-69/article/a-prophet-pushed-out-vincent-harding-and-the-menno/ |archive-date=2015-10-31}}</ref>


In January 2005, Harding remarked at the Christian [[liberal arts]] university [[Goshen College]],
In January 2005, Harding remarked at the Christian [[liberal arts]] university [[Goshen College]]:


{{quote|There's a lesson for us: If we lock up Martin Luther King, and make him unavailable for where we are now so we can keep ourselves comfortably distant from the realities he was trying to grapple with, we waste King. All of us are being called beyond those comfortable places where it's easy to be Christian. That's the key for the 21st century – to answer the voice within us, as it was within Martin, which says 'do something for somebody.' We can learn to play on locked pianos and to dream of worlds that do not yet exist.<ref name=gosh>[http://www.goshen.edu/news/2005/01/21/vincent-harding-king-for-the-21st-century-calls-us-to-walk-with-jesus-2/ "Vincent Harding: King for the 21st century calls us to walk with Jesus"], Goshen College, January 21, 2005.</ref>}}
{{quote|There's a lesson for us: If we lock up Martin Luther King, and make him unavailable for where we are now so we can keep ourselves comfortably distant from the realities he was trying to grapple with, we waste King. All of us are being called beyond those comfortable places where it's easy to be Christian. That's the key for the 21st century&nbsp;– to answer the voice within us, as it was within Martin, which says 'do something for somebody.' We can learn to play on locked pianos and to dream of worlds that do not yet exist.<ref name=gosh>[http://www.goshen.edu/news/2005/01/21/vincent-harding-king-for-the-21st-century-calls-us-to-walk-with-jesus-2/ "Vincent Harding: King for the 21st century calls us to walk with Jesus"], Goshen College, January 21, 2005.</ref>}}

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==See also==
{{portal|Biography}}
*[[African-American history|History of African-Americans in the United States]]
*[[Religion in the United States]]


==Writings==
==Writings==
Line 47: Line 77:
*''We Changed the World: African Americans, 1945–1970 (The Young Oxford History of African Americans, V. 9)''
*''We Changed the World: African Americans, 1945–1970 (The Young Oxford History of African Americans, V. 9)''
*''A Certain Magnificence: Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American Protestantism, 1775–1863 (Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion)''
*''A Certain Magnificence: Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American Protestantism, 1775–1863 (Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion)''
*Introduction to ''How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,'' by [[Walter Rodney]], Howard University Press, editor Gregory S. Kearse
*Introduction to ''How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'', by [[Walter Rodney]], Howard University Press, editor Gregory S. Kearse
*Foreword to ''Jesus and the Disinherited'', by [[Howard Thurman]] (Beacon Press, 1996)
*Foreword to ''Jesus and the Disinherited'', by [[Howard Thurman]] (Beacon Press, 1996)
*''America Will Be!: Conversations on Hope, Freedom, and Democracy'' with [[Daisaku Ikeda]] (Dialogue Path Press, 2013)
*''America Will Be! Conversations on Hope, Freedom, and Democracy'' with [[Daisaku Ikeda]] (Dialogue Path Press, 2013)
* "L'espoir de la démocratie", by Vincent Harding and Daisaku Ikeda (In French), (L'Harmattan, 2017, {{ISBN|978-2-343-11268-8}})
* "L'espoir de la démocratie", by Vincent Harding and Daisaku Ikeda (In French), (L'Harmattan, 2017, {{ISBN|978-2-343-11268-8}})
*Introduction to ''Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community'' (Beacon press, re-released 2010)

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==See also==
*[[African-American history]]
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*[[Black Mennonites]]


== References ==
== References ==
{{reflist}}
<references />


== Sources ==
== Sources ==
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==External links==
==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*[http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8zd3v Vincent Harding Papers, 1952-2014], Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, [[Emory University]]
*{{IMDb name|1325938}}
*{{IMDb name|1325938}}
* [http://www.onbeing.org/program/civility-history-and-hope/79 Interview with Vincent Harding and Krista Tippett], from "Civility, History, and Hope" as aired on ''[[On Being]]'' (audio + print transcript)
* [https://onbeing.org/programs/our-lives-can-be-signposts-for-whats-possible-vincent-harding/#transcript “Our Lives Can Be Signposts for What‘s Possible”], interview with Vincent Harding by Krista Tippett originally from the Civility, History, and Hope project as aired on ''[[On Being]]'' (audio + print transcript)
* [http://veteransofhope.org Veterans of Hope Project]
* [http://veteransofhope.org Veterans of Hope Project]
* [http://www.pbs/org/wnet/religionandethics/week620/harding.html Interview of Harding], from [[Religion and Ethics Newsweekly]]
* [http://www.pbs/org/wnet/religionandethics/week620/harding.html Interview of Harding], from [[Religion and Ethics Newsweekly]]
* [http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/28/former_king_speechwriter_dr_ Interview of Harding] on ''[[Democracy Now!]]'' (video, audio, and print transcript)
* [http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/28/former_king_speechwriter_dr_ Interview of Harding] on ''[[Democracy Now!]]'' (video, audio, and print transcript)
* {{YouTube|wgVz1n_ZhT0|Lecture by Harding}} at [[Stanford University]], video recorded October 25, 2007
* {{YouTube|wgVz1n_ZhT0|Lecture by Harding}} at [[Stanford University]], video recorded October 25, 2007
*1969 radio program, 1989 speech, and 1996 radio story on [https://soundtheology.org/audio-programs SoundTheology] Use the Selected Speakers drop-down to choose Harding, Vincent.


===Articles===
===Articles===
* [http://www.onbeing.org/program/civility-history-and-hope/feature/is-america-possible/535 "Is America Possible? A Letter to My Young Companions on the Journey of Hope"] by Vincent Harding, from ''[[On Being]]'', May 22, 2014
* [https://onbeing.org/programs/vincent-harding-is-america-possible/ "Is America Possible?"] by Vincent Harding, from ''[[On Being]]'', Feb 24, 2011
* [http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9901&article=990120 "Dangerous Spirituality"] by Vincent Harding, from ''Sojourners Magazine''
* [http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9901&article=990120 "Dangerous Spirituality"] by Vincent Harding, from ''Sojourners Magazine''
* [http://www.crosscurrents.org/king.html "Martin Luther King and the Future of America"] by Vincent Harding, from ''Cross Currents Magazine'', Fall 1996, Vol. 46, Issue 3.
* [http://www.crosscurrents.org/king.html "Martin Luther King and the Future of America"] by Vincent Harding, from ''Cross Currents Magazine'', Fall 1996, Vol. 46, Issue 3.
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* [http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=389 "Freedom's Sacred Dance"] by Vincent and Rosemarie Harding, from ''Yes! Magazine'', October 27, 2000.
* [http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=389 "Freedom's Sacred Dance"] by Vincent and Rosemarie Harding, from ''Yes! Magazine'', October 27, 2000.


{{Civil rights movement|state=collapsed}}
{{Civil rights movement}}
{{portal bar|Biography|Christianity|Civil rights movement}}

{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Harding, Vincent}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harding, Vincent}}
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[[Category:1931 births]]
[[Category:2014 deaths]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:Black studies scholars]]
[[Category:American biographers]]
[[Category:American biographers]]
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[[Category:Male biographers]]
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[[Category:American Mennonites]]
[[Category:American historians of religion]]
[[Category:American historians of religion]]
[[Category:American Mennonites]]
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[[Category:City College of New York alumni]]
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[[Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni]]
[[Category:Former Seventh-day Adventists]]
[[Category:Historians from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Historians of African Americans]]
[[Category:Historians of the United States]]
[[Category:Historians of the United States]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:American male biographers]]
[[Category:Martin Luther King Jr.]]
[[Category:Mennonite writers]]
[[Category:People from Harlem]]
[[Category:People from Harlem]]
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[[Category:City College of New York alumni]]
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[[Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni]]
[[Category:University of Chicago alumni]]
[[Category:University of Chicago alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from New York City]]
[[Category:Writers from Manhattan]]
[[Category:1931 births]]
[[Category:Historians of the civil rights movement]]
[[Category:2014 deaths]]
[[Category:Iliff School of Theology faculty]]

Latest revision as of 23:27, 5 February 2024

The Reverend
Vincent Harding
Born
Vincent Gordon Harding

(1931-07-25)July 25, 1931
New York City, New York, US
DiedMay 19, 2014(2014-05-19) (aged 82)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Occupations
  • Pastor
  • historian
  • activist
Notable work
MovementCivil rights movement
Spouses
  • Rosemarie Freeney
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1960; died 2004)​
  • Aljosie Aldrich Harding
Ecclesiastical career
ReligionChristianity (Mennonite)
Scholarly background
Alma mater
Doctoral advisorMartin E. Marty
Scholarly work
DisciplineHistory
Institutions

Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an African-American pastor, historian, and scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society. A social activist, he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about Martin Luther King Jr., whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as There Is A River, Hope and History, and Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero, he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.[1] When Harding died on May 19, 2014, his daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Harding, publicly eulogized him on the Veterans of Hope Project website.[2]  

Education[edit]

Harding was born on July 25, 1931, in Harlem, New York,[3][4] and attended New York public schools, graduating from Morris High School in the Bronx in 1948. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the City College of New York, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1952.[5] The following year he graduated from Columbia University, where he earned a Master of Science degree in journalism. Harding served in the US Army from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 he received a Master of Arts degree in history at the University of Chicago. In 1965 he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in history from the University of Chicago, where he was advised by Martin E. Marty.

Career[edit]

In 1960, Harding and his wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to participate in the Southern Freedom Movement as representatives of the Mennonite Church. The Hardings co-founded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center and movement gathering place in Atlanta. The couple traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s working as reconcilers, counselors and participants in the Movement, assisting the anti-segregation campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King Jr., including King's famous anti-Vietnam speech, "A Time to Break Silence", which King delivered on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated.[6][7]

Harding taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Temple University, Swarthmore College, and Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation. In the months after King's 1968 assassination, Harding worked with Coretta Scott King to set up the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, and served as its first director.[8] During those same months in 1968, he worked with a group of scholars to set up Atlanta's Institute of the Black World.[8] He also became senior academic consultant for the PBS television series Eyes on the Prize.

Harding served as chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal, located at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He taught at Iliff as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation from 1981 to 2004.

Beliefs and activism[edit]

Harding was a devout Christian and believer in achieving racial and economic equality in the United States.[9] Harding was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor before becoming a Mennonite pastor.[10]

In January 2005, Harding remarked at the Christian liberal arts university Goshen College:

There's a lesson for us: If we lock up Martin Luther King, and make him unavailable for where we are now so we can keep ourselves comfortably distant from the realities he was trying to grapple with, we waste King. All of us are being called beyond those comfortable places where it's easy to be Christian. That's the key for the 21st century – to answer the voice within us, as it was within Martin, which says 'do something for somebody.' We can learn to play on locked pianos and to dream of worlds that do not yet exist.[9]

Writings[edit]

  • Chapter 1 Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship
  • African-American Christianity: Essays in History
  • Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero
  • Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement
  • We Must Keep Going: Martin Luther King and the Future of America
  • There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America
  • Foreword to Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals, by Arthur C. Jones
  • We Changed the World: African Americans, 1945–1970 (The Young Oxford History of African Americans, V. 9)
  • A Certain Magnificence: Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American Protestantism, 1775–1863 (Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion)
  • Introduction to How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, by Walter Rodney, Howard University Press, editor Gregory S. Kearse
  • Foreword to Jesus and the Disinherited, by Howard Thurman (Beacon Press, 1996)
  • America Will Be! Conversations on Hope, Freedom, and Democracy with Daisaku Ikeda (Dialogue Path Press, 2013)
  • "L'espoir de la démocratie", by Vincent Harding and Daisaku Ikeda (In French), (L'Harmattan, 2017, ISBN 978-2-343-11268-8)
  • Introduction to Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community (Beacon press, re-released 2010)

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Vincent Harding". Archived from the original on June 25, 2013. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  2. ^ "Remembering Vincent Harding". Veterans of Hope. May 19, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  3. ^ Johanna Shenk. Vincent Harding: ‘Don’t get weary though the way be long’ The Mennonite. Nov. 21, 2014.
  4. ^ Anders, Tisa (July 9, 2008). "Vincent Gordon Harding (1931-2014)". Black Past. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  5. ^ "Harding, Vincent Gordon". The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. May 31, 2017. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
  6. ^ Steve Chawkins (May 23, 2014). "Vincent Harding dies at 82; historian wrote controversial King speech". LA Times. Retrieved June 10, 2015.
  7. ^ Schudel, Matt (May 22, 2014). "Vincent Harding, author of Martin Luther King Jr's antiwar speech, dies". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 10, 2015.
  8. ^ a b "Biography: Harding, Vincent Gordon". King Encyclopedia. Stanford University | Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. May 31, 2017. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  9. ^ a b "Vincent Harding: King for the 21st century calls us to walk with Jesus", Goshen College, January 21, 2005.
  10. ^ Shearer, Tobin Miller (2015). "A Prophet Pushed Out: Vincent Harding and the Mennonites". Mennonite Life. 69. Archived from the original on October 31, 2015.

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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