"The Other Day In Mississippi..."

Mississippi Denies Couples Their Right To Marry...

The Great State of Mississippi is one of my ancestral homes... In fact, I am only one generation removed from the cotton fields of the Mississippi delta where my mother and aunts and uncles labored in the hot sun while enduring the sweltering oppression of the racial hatred that for generations has defined this state that still flies the Confederate flag.  So, I am therefore keenly aware of the struggle of our GLBT brothers and sisters both black and white who are fighting for their rights in what many expect to be the last bastion of inequality and hate.

On Tuesday, and not for the first time or the last, five more brave couples sought to challenge the recalcitrant and entrenched powers that stand to deny us our rights and our rightful place in society.  In Hinds County, Mississippi five more couples sought their rights to marry in the Magnolia state.

This is what happened:

As I've been a part of this struggle, today, I am reminded of what it was like to be born into a nation that denied me equal protections under the law simply because of the color of my skin and the conditions of my birth.  Whom I choose to love and marry is no different.  This is the great and last struggle for civil rights and equality and as it was a hard fought battle for my parents generation,  so too is it for mine.

As children in my family, before we were called Black, and before we were called African-American, when we were still called Colored, we had to learn a song, whose lyrics speak to the truth of the struggle we are engaged in today:

"Fear Eats the Soul"