" Then he told me this country is what’s made him good, because he had a lot of trouble with his own daddy, and they fought like hell, and his mom would just cry and cry, and she was weak-willed, and whatever her old man wanted and said, she’d go along. But my daddy took argument with his daddy and there was lots of trouble. I mean, my daddy was the first one in his family to call a nigger Mr. and call a nigger Mrs., and he’s been their best friend in this part of town, and they know it. You want to know how he got to be their friend? I’ll tell you: through being in the army, and through realizing that’s what America is all about, including our state of Mississippi! The Stars and Stripes, they’re meant to be for everyone, daddy says. He saw a colored man save a white man’s life over in ‘the Nam,’ and he’s never forgotten what he saw. He says this country is way bigger than any damn problem we have. "

― Robert Coles , The Political Life of Children