Paul was my teacher for a couple years. I recall him lecturing our class with a shimmer in his eyes, wildly gesticulating, as he described the fierce winds of the Russian winter or the rise and fall Europe’s feudal system. His lectures would often segue to vignettes about civil-rights protests, which would inevitably conclude with him getting arrested and doing time in jail completing crossword puzzles.

Paul Raymond, whose belief in “courtesy and common sense” in education became the touchstone principle of the Northwest School — a Seattle institution he co-founded nearly 30 years ago — died Thursday after a brief illness. He was 75.

Raymond developed his conscience and voice early on. Born in the Great Depression in Manhattan, Kan., he grew up Dust Bowl-poor and started working the wheat harvest at age 12.

He served in the Army during the Korean War, and it was there that some of his early passion for the civil rights movement crystallized, said those who knew him.

One of his closest friends during the war was an African American soldier, and Raymond was incensed that the two would return to very different worlds — if they survived.

Raymond did. His friend did not, and Raymond later dedicated his life to erasing racial divisions in society. He worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to register voters in the South, built programs for inner-city children and served more than one stint in jail for his activism through the years.

Thank you, Paul.