Along for the Ride: Little Rock (Ark.) Here We Come!

About two weeks ago Friday, I went on a much-anticipated road trip with my friend Kirby. Kirby and I met through Leadership St. Louis and became fast friends. Kirby is kind, well-read and a gentleman. We also share a keen interest in social justice issues. For a long time, we had talked about going to Little Rock, Ark., to the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. We'd heard good things about the library and since it was President's Day, it was now or never because of our busy schedules. Now! We also figured we could stop at the Little Rock Central High School Historic Site. Leah and Nick came along. (Watch a slideshow from our trip.)

The trip was fun and informational. We laughed a lot. A lot. About silly things, which is the best kind of laughter. Later, as Leah and Nick strolled hand-in-hand and side-by-side (see photo above) through the exhibits at the Central High historic site and stood outside of the nearby larger-than-life high school that had been the flashpoint for school integration in the late 1950s, I remembered a conversation nearly 30 years earlier with my well-meaning mother when I brought Leah's father home to meet my parents. My mother worried that the biracial children of our marriage would be treated badly by a world that didn't welcome interracial marriages.

I was born in 1959. Right around the time of the turmoil at Central High School. The year before, Mildred and Richard Loving, were ordered to leave the state of Virginia. At the time, interracial marriage (because of anti-miscegenation laws) was illegal in that state and several others in the South. It wasn't until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court blessed the Lovings union. (There's a great document about the Lovings now showing on HBO.)

Times change. Thankfully. I'm not worried for Leah and Nick.