For me, there has never been a more profound moment than the death of my mother. On December 31, 2011, my sisters, brother and I laid my mother to rest. I sat with my young nieces and nephews and crafted her obituary and her eulogy. Mildred Taylor did not give public speeches, she was not at the March on Washington in 1963, and to my knowledge she never spent time in jail in Birmingham, New York, where she grew up, or in California where she lived most of her adult life. Yet the path she walked was very much the path of justice, equity, decency and democracy. While she will never be mentioned in the same colloquy with Martin Luther King, Jr. her contributions seem relevant. In a sense, my mother fashioned her own eulogy just as Martin Luther King did. As King stated, “Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is lifes final common denominator — that something we call death.”

My mother never wanted to talk about her life achievements or the end of life and would never agree to a long, ceremonious funeral. I knew that she would tell me not to talk too long at her funeral and not to speak of her dreams or accomplishments. It was only within the past year that I learned of her desire to play the piano one day at Carnegie Hall. She played the piano in church and taught lessons at home but I had no idea that she had such dreams of grandeur.

Only in the moment did I remember that she was the first African woman to work at Moores Department store in Lompoc, Calif., where she became well-known and beloved by so many in the community. In reflecting about her life and her friendships I remembered that her dear friend Dorothy Jackson became the first African American school principal in Lompoc, a graduate of Bethune Cookman who was educated in the light of Mary McLeod Bethune. Dorothy educated thousands of children before she died in 2005.

Before offering my own reflections on my mothers life, I recalled the day, April 4, 1968, when she called me into her bedroom — I was nine years old. She was weeping like Id never seen her weep. In fact, I had never seen my mother cry before. She held me in her arms and wept on this particular day. As she held me it became clear that she just heard the news of the assassination of this man — Martin Luther King.  By now she was hearing the words of Robert Kennedy, on what was supposed to be a routine campaign stop, who stood in the back of a flatbed truck and asked an aide, “Do they know about Martin Luther King?” They didnt, and it was left to Kennedy to tell them that King had been shot and killed that night in Memphis, Tenn. As I think about that day now, I imagine she felt tremendous responsibility after Kings death.

At her funeral, I was profoundly aware of my responsibility to live a life that is as decent, kind, caring and humane as my mothers. It was daunting for me to look up and see the members of the community who came to pay their respects — local store owners, gas station attendants, her mail carrier, next door neighbor, banker, minister, choir members and so many more. Each took a moment to tell a brief story about how she made their lives and the life of the community a little better each day.

Indeed, the civil rights movement was powered by marches, sit-ins, arrests, forms of protest and courageous acts of civil disobedience. The movement was also inspired by more divine, day-to-day acts of decency, civility and justice imbued in lives well lived. My mother was 77 years old. Those of her generation have done a great deal of work and still have more to do. Some could not do great things but did small things in a great way. As King remarked, “It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.” She did it well. I have been witness to how well many men and women like my mother lived their lives. I bear the responsibility to live up to the standard that has been set by the men and women who guided, educated and trusted me with the daily responsibilities that come with living in and sustaining a democracy.

As one of many educators at the 91̽�� it is distinctly powerful to welcome in and be responsible for the education of the next generation of leaders. Their struggle will not take place at a lunch counter and may not be one of de jure segregation or separate water fountains. Yet, more than 40 years after the death of Martin Luther King, the questions of the day are astonishingly similar. How do we provide access to high-quality public education for all of our children? Do we have an inspired vision for the reduction of unemployment, underemployment and poverty? How do we care for the young and the old guided by principles of decency and a vision of a good life? And the older challenge of what it means to be civil in our politicized social world.

As with all important questions of our time or any time, what is at stake for us now is a very practical matter of how we live the remainder of our lives and how we educate and prepare young people to live their lives. And as King said, “I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable.”  But yet, “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there ‘is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.

This year is another in which we mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day embroiled, by many accounts, in a moment of crisis—a point of urgency in which the decisions made now will influence our society and culture in the years to come. The crisis varies depending upon whom you ask, but whether it is economic, environmental, or educational, it calls on leadership and citizenship.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and notion of crisis resonates more profoundly this year because it comes on the heels of a very public act of violence against a public servant and others gathered in civic engagement. Of course, I am referring to the violence against Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others in Arizona. The incident has caused many to reflect on the nature of this countrys political discourse, the Constitution, current events, the media, and more.

The questions being raised are new and enduring. In 1861—the year the 91̽�� was founded—President Lincoln made his first inaugural address at a pivotal time in the countrys history. In his speech, Lincoln urged his countrymen to be “touched…by the better angels of our nature.” A timeless sentiment.

King, too, operated in the context of a crisis in America that was an extension of Lincolns crisis. King was called to lead in lieu of and because of the dire need to address civil and human rights violations. He challenged others to engage, to march in the same direction for justice. The civil rights movement was a strategic, broad coalition rooted in purpose and conscience that had far-reaching implications for our nation. It was—in the language of academia—interdisciplinary, as Kings work involved the nations economic, educational, religious and governmental institutions. Its interconnectedness was not limited by time, establishment or geography.

In his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King addressed this interconnectedness of our world. He wrote, “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Two years later in a commencement address at Oberlin College, he told the young graduates, “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

The educational implications of this mutuality are great. Today, all of our states higher educational institutions face a moment of opportunity. We are at a pivotal point in the midst of a deep economic dilemma and should reflect on the decisions we make today and consider how they will stand the test of time. In these times it is even more imperative that we wrestle with enduring questions in new ways: What does it mean to educate students? Who gets access to education? How are students treated when they arrive to their campus? What constitutes learning—true learning? What kinds of communities do we want? Individual and community fulfillment are bound to freedom, growth, and justice—concepts brought to life through education. And here is King again, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be…”

In his 1998 essay “Only Connect,” University of Wisconsin-Madison professor William Cronon disconnects the word “liberal” from its political connotations and traces its use in liberal arts beyond “the Latin word liber, meaning ‘free” and connects it to Old English, Greek, and Sanskrit words meaning freedom and growth. “Values,” writes Cronon, “that lie at the very core of what we mean when we speak of a liberal education.”

Cronon writes, “Liberally educated people understand that they belong to a community whose prosperity and well-being are crucial to their own, and they help that community flourish by making the success of others possible. If we speak of education for freedom, then one of the crucial insights of a liberal education must be that the freedom of the individual is possible only in a free community, and vice versa.”

Across the 91̽��, we strive to educate our students so they develop a sense of purpose, understand the interconnectedness of the world and their responsibility in it, cultivate an insatiable curiosity of the broad facets of life. Through academics within and beyond the classroom, we hope to nurture qualities that Cronon ascribes to a liberal education: “listening, reading, talking, writing, puzzle solving, truth seeking, seeing through other peoples eyes, leading, working in a community.” The purpose of nurturing these qualities is to connect to the greater world around us.

“In the end,” writes Cronon, “it turns out that liberty is not about thinking or saying or doing whatever we want. It is about exercising our freedom in such a way as to make a difference in the world and make a difference for more than just ourselves.”

In moments of exigency, many want to retreat, wait it out, avoid entanglements. However, it is by embracing the opportunity for progress, purpose, and connection that we will best emerge from crisis. We will be able to look back at 2011 as we look back at 1861 and 1968 as a historic moment. Our actions today will matter for generations to come.

As we reflect on King, upon the events and crises of the present day, and upon the emerging and enduring questions we as a society should strive to untangle and solve, I hope we connect those reflections to the difference we want to make, the march we want to lead or join, the broader impact of our actions. “We may have all come on different ships,” said King, “but were in the same boat now.”

It has been more than 40 years since Martin Luther King delivered what many believe to be his own eulogy, his final sermon at the sanitation worker’s strike in Memphis.

It is hard to believe that King has now been dead longer than he lived. I am not sure what King means to university students anymore. Nonetheless, I am thinking today that once upon a time, King himself was a college student. Did his professors see his potential? More importantly, are we seeing the potential of our students? Are we fully appreciating the precipice of greatness on which this generation may also be poised?

I can only imagine what the faculty saw when they met a young Martin Luther King as he entered Morehouse College at age 15. Did they know what he would do when he graduated four years later at the mere age of 19? What did his doctoral supervisor think when he received his doctorate in Systematic Theology from Boston University in 1955? Did they know that same year he would join the Civil Rights Movement after Rosa Parks was arrested on Dec. 1? Or that by Dec. 5 he would be elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, making him the official spokesman for the boycott?

Could his advisers have known that in 1959 he would form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation? Could someone have predicted that King would speak to a crowd of 150,000 in Washington, D.C. or that same year he would travel to India to study Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence?

In 1960, Martin became co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga. But when lunch counter sit-ins began in Greensboro, NC, the police responded. In Atlanta, King was arrested during a sit-in waiting to be served at a restaurant. Could a classmate have predicted that he would be sentenced to four months in jail and released only after intervention by John and Robert Kennedy?

Someone must have envisioned that King would keep company with Ralph Abernathy and be arrested in 1963 by Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor for demonstrating without a permit. Would it have been me? Would you have guessed that on April 13 of that year the Birmingham campaign would be launched and this would prove to be the turning point in the war to end segregation in the South?

Someone must not have been surprised that during the 11 days he spent in jail, he would write his Letter from Birmingham jail and the result, that on May 10, the Birmingham agreement would be announced. Who would have known? An English teacher, perhaps? That stores, restaurants, and schools would be desegregated, the hiring of blacks implemented, and criminal charges dropped? Did anyone imagine that he would lead 125,000 people on a Freedom Walk in Detroit? The March on Washington on Aug. 28 was the largest civil rights demonstration in history with 250,000 people in attendance. At the march, King made his I Have a Dream speech. Was there a professor in the audience saying, “I taught him once, I knew he was special?”

In King’s last speech, he posed a hypothetical question. If the Almighty had said, Martin, what age would you have liked to live in? King answered that he would have passed by the age of the Olympians, and the Roman Empire, even the era of Lincoln. He would have again chosen the challenges of his generation. Why? Because, for all the injustices going on, he saw the forces assembling for change. Something had to be done for justice. For unity. For freedom. That we would either go up together, or go down together. That is why he wasn’t fearing anything. He had been to the mountaintop.

When I see this generation of students across this great state of ours, I concur with King. For all the serious economic, ecologic, and environmental challenges we face, I wouldn’t choose another time to live in. Why? Because change is coming. Something has to be done about this planet. About corporate greed. About health care. About food and water safety. And it will be, I am confident to report, the best and brightest of our own students who will bring this change. I see it every day — they care, about each other, about us. Because of them, we will go up together. To paraphrase Toni Morrison, the force of these students is unmistakable and mounting. Their voices bespeak civilizations gone and yet to be; the precipice from which their imaginations gaze will rivet us; they do not blink or turn away.

Look around. See, really see, the next student you come across. Can’t you tell?