As I walked through the Alabama Archives of History Museum and then the Tuskegee Airmen Museum reading about slavery and the Civil War, prejudice and segregation, I thought I already knew it all. I had heard the stories, knew who Rosa Parks was and understood all of it. But this time, I wasn't a 10-year-old reading a history book on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This time, I was an 18-year-old white girl dating a black guy.

OK, so for starters—he's not even fully black, he's mixed. Which means he wouldn't even be around right now if segregation and prejudice were an issue when his parents met. And 151 years ago, his skin color would have been different enough to force him to walk in a different entrance, drink out of a different faucet, and work for a different wage.

We would not have been able to meet, talk, or be friendly, let alone date. I would have continued to live my own pompous, wealthy and sheltered life as a white girl in the 17th century, passing him and many others on my way downtown with friends.

But I'm lucky. It's not the 17th century anymore. It's 2016. I don't have to worry about that. Slavery is long gone, and segregation is a history lesson, right? Wrong. Because you see, I'm dating a black guy in the South. People will still stare and question and wonder. People will still think differently of me and him when they see us together.

But that's part of the adventure and joy of dating a black guy in the South. We have the ability to prove the onlookers wrong. We can show how color never has, and still doesn't, mean nothing but the amount of melanin in one's skin. We can break the stereotypes strangers have placed on us, and continue to be that example for other young people that we aren't living in the 17th century anymore. That race, color, culture, language, and religion can coexist and can never change the love you can have for someone. So, for those onlookers -- keep in mind: we're just your average couple.