Two Possibilities, Both Bad

When Gene Cheek was ten years old, his mother began dating a black man. It was 1961, in North Carolina. Segregation was in full effect. They all knew it was going to be problematic, even dangerous. But it wasn't until they landed in court that they realized just how unpopular they had become, or how dire the consequences of his mother's love would be. Gene Cheek has written a book about his family called The Color of Love: A Mother's Choice in the Jim Crow South. (29 minutes)