Abstract
This essay is in honor of the legacy and memory of Thomas Jefferson Pugh, the father ofAfrican-American Pastoral Care and Counseling. This writer, one of his students in 1986-1987, experienced him as a person comfortable with himself as well as with students in my particular classes. Although never speaking directly to him about my own unresolved issues related to racism, I do remember stating, in our group-therapy class, that I earned a briefcase to prove my importance to whites. He simply replied, “Why do you need to do that?” Because of his training and commitment to the worth and dignity of persons rooted deeply in his religious faith and in his dynamic interpersonalist philosophical convictions, he always challenged us to ground our identities in something deeper than racial myths.