A North Side church is honoring Dr. Howard Thurman, the late civil rights leader, preacher, educator and author.

Garland Avenue Baptist Church is hosting a colloquium on the life of Dr. Thurman, Saturday, Nov. 8, Dr. Jeffery O. Smith, the church’s pastor, has announced.

The free event will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the church, 2700 Garland Ave.

The guest lecturer is the Rev. Richard W. Wills Sr., senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Hampton and former pastor at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.

Dr. Thurman was born in 1899 and raised in Daytona, Fla. He was raised by his grandmother, who had been enslaved.

He was valedictorian of his graduating class from Morehouse College in 1923.

He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1925 at the Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary in New York.

He later was selected in 1932 as the first dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in Washington.

He also wrote 21 books, and, in 1944, founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, touted as the first racially integrated church in the United States at the time.

In 1958, he became the first black dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. He died in 1981.

Along with Mordecai Johnson and Vernon Johns, Dr. Thurman was considered one of the top African-American preachers in the early 20th century.

The most famous of his books, “Jesus and the Disinherited,” written in 1949, deeply influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

Among the honors he earned:

Dr. Thurman was named honorary canon of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. Boston University also named its cultural center the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground.

Those planning to attend the conference at the church are asked to notify Garland Avenue Baptist by Saturday, Nov. 1.

Other details: (804) 321-1372.