James Hudson

A brilliant philosopher and his
influence on the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement
While
intellectual histories of the civil rights movement often center Martin Luther
King Jr.'s writings, author Larry Omar Rivers argues that this approach leaves
out the scholar-activists who set the path for King. In this volume, Rivers
tells the mostly unknown story of James Hudson (1903-1980), a Black
philosopher, Florida A&M University professor, activist, and religious
leader whose philosophical contributions laid a key piece of the groundwork for
the emergence of the civil rights movement.
Drawing on little-used primary source documents and original
interviews with people who knew Hudson well, Rivers examines how Hudson's
training at Morehouse College, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, and Boston
University shaped his scholar-activism, including his decision to become a
Personalist philosopher. As Rivers shows, Hudson crafted an influential
philosophy of life--a blend of Socratic inquiry, moral imagination, African American
spirituality, and Gandhian nonviolence--that became an essential foundation for
the rise of King, another Personalist philosopher. The book also sheds new
light on the connections between the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the
lesser-known 1956 Tallahassee Bus Boycott, which together helped spark the formation
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
This long-overdue biography is not
only an insightful exploration of the intellectual and activist landscape of
the Black community from the 1930s to the 1960s but also the story of an unsung
hero and his involvement with important scholarly communities that influenced
the trajectory of the civil rights movement.

Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities
through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities.