Ruby Pearl and Sergeant Kirkland: Fried Chicken and Canteen Water
A decade ago, a woman who worked with me casually mentioned that she had been one of the thousands arrested during the Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama's 1960's civil rights unrest.
Then she went on to say something that changed my life in a wonderful way: "And you know," she told me, "there was this ol' handicapped white lady for a time who showed up for every single demonstration and march givin' out fried chicken with the fixin's in clean boxes. But every time a photographer got close or a newspaper reporter tried to ask her why, she would run or hide. Nobody could ever find out her name -- we just knew her as a great cook and an ol' handicapped white lady."