I just listened to This American Life on the radio. I am con­tin­u­al­ly amazed at just how good this show is. They find so many compelling stories.

This week, Ira Glass in­ter­viewed Gene Cheek, who wrote a memoir, The Color of Love: A Mother's Choice in the Jim Crow South.

In the early 1960s, Cheek's divorced mother fell in love with Tuck, a black man. They lived in a small town in North Carolina, and the mis­ce­gena­tion laws were still on the books. They dated clan­des­tine­ly, but eventually their re­la­tion­ship become known. The police would stop by regularly to harass them. After she had a baby by Tuck, her …continue.