Dr. Bill Lawrence, Dean of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, writes in this quarter's alumnae magazine about a development at the school in the early fifties that was controversial at the time, but would not raise an eyebrow today. It was 1951, when the higher-ups of the school of theology and the university met to develop a plan to desegregate SMU entirely. The risk was high on many levels, and the plan seems now to have been way ahead of other institutions' plans to integrate, in comparison. 

As with many other desegregation plans, fear of retaliation and violence ran rampant and many approached the dean of the theology school, the president of the university and Joe and Lois Perkins, benefactors for whom the school was named, with a plea to leave things as they were. Elizabeth Perkins Prothro remembered specifically that it was her mother who stood up to the naysayers and said that desegregation would not be stopped. 

A key element that raised the tension at the time was that one of the first five African-American students to attend Perkins announced that he and a white student planned to room together on campus. Many feared that this decision alone would be enough to set off the campus like a match to dry timber. However, their fears were not realized. That student was Rev. Cecil Williams, now known for decades of courageous and meaningful ministry in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church.

What acts, large or small, do you feel called to take on this year? What injustice, major or minor, will you attempt to correct in the near future? What marginalized person, known to you or a stranger, will you befriend in the coming months? As we reflected on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in recent days, we remembered that the task is not complete. In the world around you, who out there might be looking to you to be their inspiration?