RACE REMIXED
Black and White and Married in the Deep South: A Shifting Image


By SUSAN SAULNY
NYTimes.com
Published: March 19, 2011

HATTIESBURG, Miss. — For generations here in the deepest
South, there had been a great taboo: publicly crossing the
color line for love. Less than 45 years ago, marriage
between blacks and whites was illegal, and it has been
frowned upon for much of the time since.
Race Remixed

So when a great job beckoned about an hour’s drive north
of the Gulf Coast, Jeffrey Norwood, a black college
basketball coach, had reservations. He was in a serious
relationship with a woman who was white and Asian.

“You’re thinking about a life in South Mississippi?” his
father said in a skeptical voice, recalling days when a
black man could face mortal danger just being seen with a
woman of another race, regardless of intentions. “Are you
sure?”

But on visits to Hattiesburg, the younger Mr. Norwood said
he liked what he saw: growing diversity. So he moved,
married, and, with his wife, had a baby girl who was
counted on the last census as black, white and Asian.
Taylor Rae Norwood, 3, is one of thousands of mixed-race
children who have made this state home to one of the
country’s most rapidly expanding multiracial populations,
up 70 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to new data
from the Census Bureau.

for the rest of this article, go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/us/20race.html

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