Randl Ockey column: A cautionary tale for each of us

With my 1950 birth year, you don’t have to be a math whiz to figure out that I came of age in one of the most tumultuous periods in modern American history: the 1960s. The passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, the assassinations of Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, Viet Nam, college campus riots, etc. were all part of my growing up years in the Chicago suburbs.

But none of these events prepared me for what I would experience when, fresh out of college in 1975, I accepted a job in Mississippi and we moved our young family to the 1970s Deep South.

Not long after we arrived in Mississippi, I became acquainted with Albert (not his real name), whom I met at church. We were about as different as two people could possibly be. He was 10-15 years my senior, Mississippi born and raised, and Southern through and through. But we hit it off from day one and enjoyed serving together in church duties.

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As we got to know each other better, I became increasingly aware that

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