She is one of four or five white people at the community center, and some days, every one of her customers is African-American. Ms. Rodgers' daughter, Michele Sparks, is working on a way to memorialize the Rev. Dr. King. Ms. Rodgers is right there with them on the need for a memorial. She loves her job at the snack bar. Now prove it.
Some people act publicly to express their openmindedness.
Others change inside themselves. They start attending church or working with a person of another race for the first time, and they experience a personal conversion. That happened to Jean Rodgers. For 26 years, Ms. Rodgers was married to a man who made Archie Bunker look tolerant, she says. An African-American family lived a few doors away in Covington, and she never spoke to them, never even looked their way.