Howard Thurman, Body Memories, and the Power of the Vignette.

This article examines Howard Thurman’s use of vignettes as a distinctive rhetorical strategy for addressing collective trauma, focusing on his 1958 sermon “The Third Component.” Thurman, a Black mystic and preacher influential in the civil rights movement, employs brief, evocative episodes to evoke body memories—somatic recollections of trauma and regard—that invite listeners to engage in difficult memory work without explicit interpretation or judgment. Central to his method is the “third memory,” a spiritual memory of communing in the Presence of total regard, which Thurman argues can condition individuals to transform the pervasive “contagion of ill will” in racially segregated society. By cultivating spiritual practices that hone intuitive awareness and embodied attention, Thurman’s vignettes function as a form of public memory work aimed at enabling fellowship and healing across social divides, emphasizing the ethical imperative and embodied challenges of racial justice.