Our attorney general has told us that we are cowards when it comes to the issue of race, or at least in openly discussing it. I wasn't exactly sure how to take that, but I've spent a little while thinking about it, and trying to examine my own heart.

In the medical field, we are certainly not taught racism, but we are informed of certain medical facts. For instance, some members of Jewish communities whose ancestors lived around the Mediterranean are more prone than others to certain blood problems (Thallasemia). Most sickle cell disease occurs in blacks. And whites are twice as likely to develop multiple sclerosis than any other race. Those are facts and differences, not racism. And in the ER, you quickly learn that when it comes to color, we all bleed red.

But today I don't want to talk about medicine. And I don't want us to consider this idea of cowardice. I want us to think about its counterpart, courage.

In the mid-1960's, we moved to Due West, SC, where my father was to teach chemistry at Erskine College. My sisters and I enrolled at Dixie High School, where I was to be a freshman. Good southern name, "Dixie". But even though it was an all-white high school in 1965, there were no rebel flags on the walls or in the stands at ballgames, and the school mascot was a "green hornet".

As in most schools throughout South Carolina, things were about to change. I remember one sweltering August afternoon when my father told me what was to happen at Dixie in a few weeks. Two black students were going to attend the high school, a boy and a girl.

"Robert, you need to treat them with respect," he told me. That was all.

I don't remember being shocked. It was just a fact, something that was going to happen. And my father had made it clear how I was to respond and how I was to act.

Danella Ruth was an interesting person. She was self-assured, engaging, and maybe quietly defiant. But then, she had to be. Looking back at that time and those days, I don't think I understood how difficult this process was for her. I guess most of us were thinking how difficult it was for us and for how our world was changing. But I do remember liking her, and showing her the respect my father had instructed. That part was easy. She and I, for whatever reason, had an unspoken understanding.

Years later, I learned that the choice of Danella Ruth as the first black female student at Dixie High School was not hastily made. It turns out that a lot of thought went into the process, with the input from a lot of people. My father was one of those. Her father was a minister of a local church, and he and my father had become friends. I don't know who else was involved, but these were people of principle, and of courage. These were difficult times.

There was never any violence at Dixie, and I really don't remember any tense or ugly moments. We just made it through those days and weeks and years, thanks in large part to Danella Ruth. It was her character and personality, and yes, her courage, though I didn't really put a name on it then.

I wish I had. I wish I had thanked her for what she went through and what she endured. And I wish I had acknowledged her courage.

But it's too late now. I haven't seen Danella Ruth in more than thirty years, and a few weeks ago, I came across a news-article about her recent death. It didn't list the cause, just that she was gone. I was saddened by that. And then came the words of our attorney general. I understand that none of this makes me brave. But not all of us are cowards. Not Danella Ruth.