“In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, of the Circuit Court [388 U.S. 1, 3] of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:
‘Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
Section 20-59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides:
Punishment for marriage. If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years.’”
The Loving decision was handed down on June 12, 1967. Only a few weeks earlier, what would come to be one of the most controversial yet successful films of its day had just wrapped up filming. A witty comedy nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning the Oscar for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay, the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, featured a young, dashing and black Sidney Poitier as the surprise fiancé to the daughter of an upper middle class white liberal family. In a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in 16 states, the making of this film and its theatrical release is something short of a miracle. It is said that no production then or since has received so much negative treatment to its star or animosity to the production -including death threats to the cast and directors. They even worried if it would be safe or profitable to show it in the south and what a surprise when at one theatre there was a line 15 blocks long. While some were horrified Hollywood would showcase interracial marriage (again it was still illegal some states), some liberals felt that Poitier’s character was almost too perfect not to be accepted (didn’t we hear that about Former President Barak Obama?).
But in the spirit of historical love … Guess Who played those liberal parents? On June 10th, 1967, two days before the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving, and only a couple of weeks after filming wrapped, long time Hollywood great, Spencer Tracy, who had convincingly played that liberal yet closed minded father in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, died in his home while making tea. It would be his 9th film co-starring with long time love Katherine Hepburn (who played the more tolerant mother in the film). Hepburn & Tracy’s legendary story was a true, albeit unconventional epic love story as for most of their time, he was married and she was his lover. As This is Glamorous shared in their list of Great Love Stories: “Though the message of true, passionate, undying love is constant, the tale of how this is reached is undoubtedly individual, and there is most certainly no ‘right or wrong’. Some love stories, perhaps, at the time, do not conform to what society describes as a ‘proper’ relationship — but years later, while looking back at the details and circumstance, it is discovered to be an undeniably great love story . . .”