Becoming Wise is supported by the Fetzer Institute.

I've had hundreds of big conversations, and my conversation partners share wisdom I carry with me wherever I go.

Here's an image I love of the late Vincent Harding, of what we can all be,

live human signposts. Vincent Harding himself was a live human signpost, and he remains a

mentor to me and countless others. He was a central figure in the civil rights movement, a speechwriter

from Martin Luther King Jr.

He spent the rest of his life on a project called Veterans of Hope, bringing the wisdom of the movement to young people in hurting places.

This is Becoming Wise. I'm Krista Tippett.

Music This is Becoming Wise. I'm Krista Tippett. There's a story you tell that it's about your conversation and encounter you were having in a hard neighborhood in Boston and a young man named Daryl.

Yes.

Would you tell that story about signposts, his image of signposts?

Hmm.

What I remember from that story was that a dear young friend of mine, Eugene Rivers, young at that time.

I guess Jean is a good deal.

Still busy in Boston.

You're still busy in Boston.

I met this young man in Eugene's apartment, and this young man came up just to sit next to me because he wanted to talk in a more personal way.

It turned out that he was one of the leaders of the drug-running folks at the time.

But what he said to me was that he really felt that one of the reasons why

he had gone in the way that he had gone, not trying in any way to excuse himself, was the

fact that he, like many other young people, were operating in a situation where they felt it was just very, very dark, all around them.

And what they needed were, as he put it, some signposts, some lights that would in other people's lives help them.

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