My father was from rural Alabama, and my mother was from rural Mississippi. To state that they were prejudiced would be to put it mildly. It was so bad that my father blew a fuse when, as a teenager working a summer job, I invited a black male co-worker to visit our home, and while in college, I hid a two-year romantic relationship with a brilliant and beautiful black fellow student - one of the finest ladies it has ever been my privilege to know - from their knowledge out of dire necessity.

My mother was severely ill for much of my Mobile, Alabama childhood. My father hired Edna, a black woman, to be a housekeeper and a nanny to me.

Although I was a small child, I can remember her looking at the King protests on the TV when they reached our hometown, and proclaiming to no one in particular and everyone in general, “Look at all those people out there, making fools of themselves!”

But she used the money she made from the job to put her own daughter through college. In that context, I can understand her employment-preserving statement.