Placid Coach M. was loved by all of the sophomore boys.  This mild, sandy-haired man with a quiet voice never berated or punished.  Only his encouragement led them to resounding victories on the gridiron. They adored him without fully knowing why.

During the day he taught civics; was considered by the boys and the girls to be an easy A.  In 1955, in his Bible Belt outpost, Coach M. opened class countering a segregationist argument in the dailies:  “There is no such thing as separate but equal,” he softly drawled.

Most of the teenagers reacted silently with a shrug —whatever—and continued passing notes or exchanging playful jabs.   A few were concerned with the threat of busing, but most of the heat of this issue was generated by parents.  Most did not even know a Negro.

Annie was neither quiet nor still; she was at her best on the debate team; she liked being scrappy.  From her front row vantage point, Annie peppered Coach M. with opposing, separatist views.  A child of the south, they were the only views she knew.

Coach M. responded to each salvo in a slow, tranquil manner.  Each answer well-reasoned.  Each peaceful response immediately punctured by Annie, mutilated with a barrage of sharp-edged retorts and piercing accusations.

No one stirred; ears tuned to the strange war; eyes frozen on Coach M, sitting immobile at his desk.  His voice continued in gentle registers but his pale and freckled complexion began to reflect inner pressure.  Skin turned ruddy from shirt collar to receding hairline.

“Equality means treating people the same.  Negroes are the same as us.  We cannot pretend that separate schools, separate water fountains are a form of equality,” he said.  Calm.  Still.  No outward show of animosity.  Softness to his gray eyes.

Annie’s encyclopedic mind sifted through all that she had been taught in her 16 years of southern living.  With the debater’s keen sense of the kill, Annie unleashed the mortar:  “If you believe Negroes are your equal, would you marry one?”

Coach M. began to slowly nod his head and through pursed lips expelled some of the growing pressure.  “Yes,” he said.  “If I loved her, I would marry her.”

A gasp escaped the room.  In an instant they knew, these teenagers. Whose parents ran the community and the Baptist Church.  The PTA and the School Board.  Whose parents decided the fate of Coach M.  They knew this most gentle of men had taken a dangerous stand for what he believed in.  And they loved him even more.

For some students, the emotion was fleeting, never again recalled.  After all it was early autumn in the South, and many of the boys obsessed about their playing time on the field and whether they would earn their football letter.  Many of the girls worried about whether they would have a date — and a mum —for Friday’s A-team game.

A few students began to dilute the love with other feelings.  Some felt guilty for their admiration of a man so clearly in opposition to their parents.  Some felt conflicted, unsure of what to do with Coach M’s ideas. The religious teens debated the right thing to do, but despite the moral tugs, none reported Coach’s blasphemy.

One student left the classroom in turmoil, the adoration tinged with both anger and shame.  Annie willed herself to remain calm, to hide from her friends the enormity of the moment.  She felt betrayed, but not by Coach M.  Annie’s other adults had failed her, those parents and grandparents who had subtly taught her their bias.

Annie’s adoration was inevitable; she had a strong sense of righteousness, and Coach M. had taken a martyr’s stand.  Her anger was inevitable, because Annie did not like to lose.  Shame was the most powerful of the three; Annie’s realization that despite her best intention of seeing the world fairly, her view had been contaminated, and she was wrong.

By the end of 1955, Rosa Parks had been arrested, followed by the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  In the 60’s came the March on Washington, Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the Civil Rights Act.  Annie graduated high school, went to college, got married to a hometown boy and started a family.

Annie opened her eyes to the whites-only signs that had been all around her since birth—overt ones at water fountains and restaurants; covert ones in neighborhoods and at jobsites.  She began to teach her own children a philosophy in keeping with her heart’s view of human equality and she voted her belief.  Over time, her anger and her shame faded and were forgotten.  All that remained was her abiding love of Coach M.