Who is Going to Raise the Village? Taking Responsibility for the Education of African American Youth The 2004 Kuyper Lecture

spectacles that enhanced his appearance as an intellectual; a gentleman committed to the life of the mind. He had invited one of his graduate students to come speak with him about the young man’s budding career as a scholar. Kelsey, who had been academic advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights leader’s undergraduate years at Morehouse College, was now speaking to one of the last of his advisees on the eve of the storied professor’s retirement. Like many African Americans educated in the segregated schools of the South, especially those who went on to historically black colleges and universities, there was always a sense of social responsibility for the next generation of Black young people, even beyond that of providing the basics of an education. Education consisted of a modeling and mentoring, not unlike that noted by the Apostle Paul when he told the church at Thessalonica that “we were willing to have imparted to you not the gospel o