"The Movement continues in every aspect of life. I have carried my understanding of its principles into the classroom, to work, into prisons and jails and in my daily walk through life. It is a vital to me as the air I breathe." - Muriel Tillinghast

Her involvement in civil rights started in junior high school as a youth organizer for the Maryland Synod Luther League. In college, she was president of the Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) and participated in de-segregation issues in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Delaware. She worked behind-the-scenes in the March on Washington. This experience allowed her to become a key organizer for the Student Nonviolent Action Committee. Listen to her experience as she held down state operations during the Mississippi Challenge, Greenwood, MS, in late summer-fall, 1964 as one of three women organizers. She not only headed State operations in Jackson, MS but also worked with Cleve Sellers, head of SNCC Personnel and Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, head of SNCC Operations, 1965-1967 with Office operations for the up-south program of Mississippians coming to Washington, D.C. to voice their opinion and to raise a public cry against the war in Vietnam,  summer 1966.

Kent Watkins, founder and head of the American Academy for Housing and Communities, describes his experience in first meeting her. "Muriel's path and mine actually crossed without knowing it, when she was sleeping in the basement of the All Soul's Unitarian church on the way to Mississippi for SNCC (Student's Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and I was attending that church, while working as a staffer on both the House and then Senate side for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. The difference was that Muriel was what made it all happen by being on the front lines with others who risked their lives, while I sat in gilded offices in the Capitol and worked on legislation. She has some wonderful but searing stories to tell about this era of justice and afterwards, she moved on to make further contributions to civil society, all of which qualified her as an Academy Fellow Trailblazer."

In her adult life, she has held positions with major responsibilities in high impact planning and delivery operations, strategic support, advocacy, education, family, and child services.