The Audacity to Ask for More

In 1948, a young Baptist preacher named Howard Thurman sat across from Mahatma Gandhi in his sparse ashram in Sevagram, India. Gandhi had spent decades pioneering nonviolent resistance. Thurman could have asked for a photograph, a blessing, or a simple word of encouragement. Instead, he asked Gandhi something breathtaking: "What message would you send to the American Negro?" He was asking for the transfer of a movement — not just inspiration, but the very methodology of liberation.…