I’ve linked to this elsewhere, but this article from The New Yorker is really quite fantastic. I’m really a fan of the way the writer (Margaret Talbot, whose name I don’t recognize) presents the case, and compares it to other quests for civil rights.

She discusses the necessity of finding suitable plaintiffs for a case like this, by comparing the Lovings, who were plaintiffs for a case on interracial marriage (and have the perfect name), with the woman who was the plaintiff in Roe vs. Wade (and later became an anti-abortion activist). I heard an NPR piece on Rosa Parks, and how she wasn’t in fact the first woman to do what she did, but instead was the one who had the best background for pursuing a national suit. (Before her, most recently, was a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin who was pregnant and not thought of as a good face for the campaign. Which makes sense, really.)

Anyway, I recommend it for reading. I wish I could jump to the end and see what happens, but I guess that doesn’t work so well in Real Life.