Walter Fluker

Dr. Walter Fluker was born in Vaiden, Mississippi and raised in Chicago, Illinois where he attended public schools. He served in the United States Army as a Chaplain’s Assistant from 1971-1973. He received his BA degree in philosophy and biblical studies from Trinity College in 1977, and an MDiv degree in 1980 from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Fluker completed his PhD degree in social ethics at Boston University, in 1988. He retired from the Boston University School of Theology in June 2020.

He served as pastor of the historic St. John’s Congregational Church, UCC in Springfield, Massachusetts from 1981-1986. In 1986, Fluker was university chaplain and assistant professor of religion at Dillard University. He became assistant professor of Christian ethics at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and assistant pastor at First Baptist Church. He became assistant professor of Christian ethics at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and assistant pastor at First Baptist Church in Capitol Hill, in 1987. In 1991, Fluker was named dean of black church studies and Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial professor of theology and black church studies at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. In 1992, Fluker became editor of the Howard Thurman Papers Project. He served as director, National Resource Center for the Development of Ethical Leadership from the Black Church Tradition from CRCD in 1993-1998. In 1998, Fluker joined Morehouse College as executive director of The Leadership Center (renamed the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership), The Coca Cola professor of leadership studies and professor of philosophy and religion.

In 2004, Fluker served as visiting professor for the University of Capetown Graduate School of Business, Distinguished Lecturer in the International Human Rights Exchange Program and faculty at The Salzburg Global Seminar, Salzburg, Austria. Fluker was a distinguished speaker for the US Embassy in Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria; Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban, South Africa, China; and India. Having served visiting professorships at the Harvard College and Divinity School and Candler School of Theology; and visiting scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary, and Columbia Theological Seminary. Fluker joined the Boston University School of Theology faculty as the Martin Luther King, Jr. professor of ethical leadership and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Initiative for the Development of Ethical Leadership in 2010. He consulted for the Democratic Leadership Council National Conversation, Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Program, the Department of Education, the Department of State, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Georgia State Superintendents’ Association, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Selected Publications:

• The Ground Has Shifted: The Black Church in Post-Racial America. New York: New York University Press, 2016
• Ethical Leadership and the Quest for Character, Civility, and Community. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009
• They Looked for a City: A Comparative Analysis of the Ideal of Community in the Thought of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989
• “Now We Must Cross a Sea: Remarks on Transformational Leadership and the Civil Rights Movement.” Boston University Law Review, 95, no. 3 (2015): 1225-1232.
• “Leading Ethically at the Intersection Where Worlds Collide.” Leader to Leader, Number 54 (Fall 2009): 32-38.
• “The Quest for Character, Civility, and Community: Preparing Students for Ethical Complexity at the Intersection Where Worlds Collide.” Liberal Education: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 97, no. 3-4 (Summer-Fall 2011): 14-21.
• “Transformed Nonconformity in the Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr.” Princeton Theological Bulletin, Spring 2004.
• “They Looked for a City: A Comparison of the Ideal of Community in Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 18, no. 2 (Fall 1990), 33-55.