I just heard the other day of the passing of Mildred Loving.  This is a person that I never met but a person who had an influence on my.  When I was in grade school I had to do a report on a current topic.  I looked through a magazine and saw an article, "The Crime of Being Married."  Mildred and her husband lived in Virginia.  She was black and her husband was white.  In Virginia interracial marriage was illegal.  Police came in the middle of the night and roused them out of bed and threw them in jail for being married.  They avoided a jail term by agreeing to leave the state.  They sued and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled that anti-miscegnation laws were unconstitutional.  As a child I could not believe that people could be treated like this.  I could not believe that the government could tell people who they could and could not love.  I lived in a what was then a mostly white community and didn't real have any black friends at the time.  I suppose I was somewhat prejudiced but this article really made me think about what a terrible thing prejudice was.  This beautiful young couple were being punished for who they were.  I found it so hard to believe.  As I follow Barack Obama's campaign and how he may very well be our next President it makes me understand how far our country has come since the 1960's and how brave the people were who fought back then to make this country a better place, a country where there truly is liberty and justice for all.  It is a continuing struggle I know but we are getting there. 

Peace to all - Mark