Sue Bailey Thurman (née, Sue Elvie Bailey; August 26, 1903 – December 25, 1996) was an American author, lecturer, historian and civil rights activist. She was the first non-white student to earn a bachelor's degree in music from Oberlin College, Ohio. She briefly taught at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, before becoming involved in international work with the YWCA in 1930. During a six-month trip through Asia in the mid-1930s, Thurman became the first African-American woman to have an audience with Mahatma Gandhi. The meeting with Gandhi inspired Thurman and her husband, theologian Howard Thurman, to promote non-violent resistance as a means of creating social change, bringing it to the attention of a young preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. While they did not actively protest during the