James Forman

James Forman (October 4, 1928 – January 10, 2005) was an American Civil Rights leader active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, and the International Black Workers Congress.

He received a master’s degree in African and Afro-American studies from Cornell University in 1980 and a Ph.D from the Union of Experimental Colleges and Universities with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He founded James Forman and Associates, a political consulting group. During the 1990s, he taught at American University, the University of the District of Columbia and Morgan State University in Baltimore. He was also the author of several notable books. The New York Times called him "a civil rights pioneer who brought a fiercely revolutionary vision and masterly organizational skills to virtually every major civil rights battleground in the 1960's."

Early life and education

Forman was born on October 4, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. As an 11-month-old baby he was sent to live with his grandmother, "Mama Jane", on her farm in Marshall County, Mississippi. He was raised in a "dirt poor" environment, it was not uncommon for him to eat dirt because it was believed to have some nutritional value. In his autobiography, he called eating dirt a "staple" of his diet. He recalls being "hungry all the time." His family had no outhouse and no electricity. They used leaves, newspapers, and corncobs for toilet paper and they used twigs off of trees as their toothbrushes. Despite these things, Forman claims to have never questioned his poverty and did not understand it at the time. His Aunt Thelma once caught James reading a shopping catalog in the dark. She, being a school teacher, took an interest in accelerating James' studying and gave him lessons at home. James credits his upbringing for his eventual successes,saying his grandmother gave him a sense for justice while his aunt gave him his "intellectual fire."

Martin Luther

Martin Luther (/ˈluːθər/;German: [ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈlʊtɐ]; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, former monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Late Medieval Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He proposed an academic discussion of the power and usefulness of indulgences in his Ninety-Five Theses of 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

Luther taught that salvation and subsequently eternal life is not earned by good deeds but is received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans even though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ.