Society for Values in Higher Education

Nota Bene: A Speech for Our Time

“Catching Up With Martin: the ‘fierce urgency’ of King’s Vision for Current and Future Leaders”, a Founder’s Day speech at Washington and Lee University by Fellow John Maguire, masterfully blends King’s voice with others, both past and present, which still speak to that ‘fierce urgency’ for “transforming our values, reordering our priorities, rooting our social activism in deep spirituality, and living out the centrality of a world-encircling love.” Participating in the struggle to achieve these elements of King’s vision is what truly honors him, Maguire finds direct parallels between King’s historical circumstances and our own, circumstances whose urgency still requires us to “to provide young people with...opportunities to engage in self-transforming and structure-transforming direct action.”

Click here for an easy to read/print PDF of the entire speech.