February 23, 2024
Showing posts with label inter-racial marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inter-racial marriage. Show all posts
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Loving Moments
By Logan Royce Beitmen Journal Staff Writer
Monroe Gallery of Photography presents Grey Villet’s tender images of the couple who legalized interracial love
Sixty years ago, Life Magazine photographer Grey Villet photographed Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial married couple who had been arrested and convicted under Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws. The Lovings were eventually vindicated in 1967 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia, a landmark civil rights decision that legalized interracial marriage and paved the way for same-sex marriage decades later.
But in 1965, when Villet photographed them, the Lovings were still weary from their yearslong legal battle and publicity-shy due to threats of lynching.
Villet’s photographs of the couple, on view at the Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe through April 13, show them engaged in everyday domestic activities. As the late photographer’s wife, Barbara Villet, wrote in a New York Times essay, these photographs humanized the Lovings and showed that they were “a quintessentially ordinary couple extraordinarily in love with each other.”
“Emotional content always mattered most to Grey in his work and pursuit of images ‘as real as real could get.’ It’s what gives his take on the Loving family its intimacy and strength,” she wrote. “Unlike many other celebrated photographers, he avoided posing his subjects, refused to manipulate the action and simply waited patiently for telling moments to emerge, in the belief that reality would supply more truth than any imposition of his own ego.” Villet was famous for his spending many days with his subjects and shooting only with available light and a hand-held long lens, which allowed him to disappear into the background. Even the Lovings, who were quiet, private people, felt comfortable enough in his presence to reveal their intimate lives.
In addition to challenging racist ideas, Villet’s photographs of the Lovings challenged notions of gender and class, as well.
In some of his photographs, including one where Mildred is mending Richard’s shirt button and one where Richard is reclining with his head in her lap, Mildred is positioned higher in the frame than her husband, whereas in most art directed photographs and films of that era, women were traditionally positioned lower. Villet’s authentic slice-of-life images subverted the prevailing gender hierarchy.
His tender images also challenge stereotypes about working-class masculinity. As Barbara Villet wrote in the Times essay, her husband’s portraits of Richard Loving, in particular, revealed “the face of a laborer who, despite the macho exterior, is a sensitive man.”
Monroe Gallery’s “Loving” gives viewers the opportunity to reflect on this unlikely, history-making couple 60 years after Villet first photographed them.
‘LOVING’ By Grey Villet
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; through April 13
WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe
HOW MUCH: Free, monroegallery.com
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Free screening of the acclaimed documentary "The Loving Story" February 15
Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to present a free screening of the acclaimed documentary film "The Loving Story", a simple, profound love story between one man and one woman who in and of themselves were unlikely crusaders in the fight for equity.
Saturday, February 15. Film begins promptly at 4:30. Seating is limited, RSVP essential.
In conjunction with the new exhibition "Loving", on view through April 12, 2025
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
The Story of Richard and Mildred Loving
Photograph by Grey Villet
Richard and Mildred Loving laughing and watching television
in their living room, King and Queen County, Virginia, 1965
Exhibit
of Photographs Coincides with Feature Film “Loving” Premiere
Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is
pleased to exhibit LIFE magazine
photographer Grey Villet's intimate images of an interracial couple, Richardand Mildred Loving, who married and then spent the next nine years fighting for
the right to live as a family in their hometown. Their civil rights case,
Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967
reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry. Grey Villet’s photographs
are on exhibit November 1 – December 21, 2016.
On November 4, the feature film “Loving” opens, from acclaimed
writer/director Jeff Nichols and starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga in the
roles of Richard and Mildred Loving.
The families of Richard Perry Loving and Mildred Delores
Jeter had lived in Caroline County, Virginia for generations. Richard first met
Mildred while listening to her brothers play music at the Jeters’ home. They
dated for a few years before deciding to marry. Interracial marriage was
illegal in Virginia and in twenty-five other states. For this reason, on June
2, 1958, Richard brought to his bride-to-be to Washington, D.C., where there
were no racial bans on marriage.
Based on an anonymous tip that the Lovings were illegally
living as a married, sheriff Garnett Brooks and two deputies burst into the
Lovings’ bedroom on July 11, 1958 at 2 a.m. When Richard explained that the
woman in bed with him was his wife, Brooks replied, “Not here she’s not.” They
were arrested for unlawful cohabitation and both pled not guilty. Richard only
spent one night in jail while Mildred had to spend four; Richard was told that
he would be put back in jail if he tried to bail out his wife.In October 1958, the grand jury of the Circuit Court of Caroline County charged the Lovings with violating two sections of Virginia’s 1924 Racial Integrity Act. Because Richard was white and Mildred was African American and Native American, their marriage was illegal and a felony offence in Virginia.
On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the felony
charge of miscegenation and Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced them to one year in
prison. The sentence was suspended if the Lovings agreed to be banished from
Virginia for twenty-five years. On appeal, Bazile refused to set aside his
original verdict, thereby propelling the Lovings’ case toward the U.S. Supreme
Court, stating, “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.”
Banished from Virginia, the Lovings’ moved to Washington,
D.C. In June 1963, Mildred wrote to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, asking if
the new Civil Rights legislation would help her family return to Virginia.
Kennedy responded that Mildred contact the American Civil Liberties Union, who
had been actively pursuing anti-miscegenation test cases since the late 1950s.
ACLU attorneys Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop took the Lovings’ case,
filing a brief in November 1964. The Loving v. Virginia decision delivered on
June 12, 1967, found all miscegenation laws unconstitutional.From Chief Justice Earl Warren’s 1967 unanimous opinion:
"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."
In an era before any digital tinkering with results was
possible, Grey Villet’s technique was one that required intense
concentration, patience and understanding of his subjects joined with a
technical mastery that allowed rapid use of differing cameras and lenses to
capture and compose the "right stuff" on film as it
happened. “RIGHTS, RACE & REVOLUTIONS:A Portrait of LIFE in 1960s America
by Grey Villet” was exhibited at the Museum at Bethel Woods April 2 – December
31, 2016. Grey Villet died in 2000.
Gallery hours are 10 to 5 Daily, admission is free. Visit www.monroegallery.com for more information.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Giving Thanks for Photography
“Richard and Mildred Loving” (1965), by Grey Villet.
Courtesy of the estate of Grey Villet.
Via The New Yorker: a selection of eight writers on photographs that they are thankful for.
Recently, I’ve been travelling in the Deep South, pausing at civil-rights sites along my reporting route—Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s’s bomb-pocked parsonage in Montgomery, Alabama, for starters, and Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Most of the landmarks that I’ve visited display iconic photographs of the movement’s labors, largely rooted in the politics and aesthetics of struggle: black youth and integrated Freedom Riders standing, disobediently civil, before snarling police dogs and sneering lunch-counter crowds. Here, though, I’ve plucked a photograph from the movement that draws its strength less from struggle than from domestic affection, which seems well-suited to file under “Thanksgiving”: an image from Grey Villet’s 1965 series, for Life magazine, on Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple in Central Point, Virginia, who helped to end the interminable era of anti-miscegenation statutes. The power of the series lies in the quiet intimacies that it captures. Mostly, the photos depict everyday life: eating, idling, kissing, conferring. In this particular shot, the Lovings watch TV and laugh—a reminder that to lounge about in simple communion can sometimes be beautifully subversive, too.
—Sarah Stillman
Friday, December 7, 2012
NYC: The Loving Story Film Opens December 10
Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County,
Virginia in April 1965
The Loving Story
By Michelle Orange Wednesday, Dec 5 2012
Well-timed and well crafted in equal measures, The Loving Story is a thoughtful, terrifically intimate account of the case that dismantled this country's anti-miscegenation laws 100 years after the abolition of slavery. The story of Virginia couple Mildred and Richard Loving's efforts to live and love each other freely captures a critical moment in a civil rights movement whose most recent strides—for same-sex marriage—are just a few weeks old. First-time director Nancy Buirski's focus on the constitutional tangles that brought Loving v. Virginia before the Supreme Court in 1967 also complement Lincoln's warm, wonky embrace of the democratic procedural. A wealth of archival footage gives The Loving Story an oddly modern quality. We watch the supremely humble couple (Richard was white; Mildred part black and part Native American) interacting at home, tolerating journalists, conferring with attorneys, and recounting their path to the courtroom: Having been arrested in their home state, the Lovings moved to Washington, D.C. Mildred's distressed letter to Bobby Kennedy set things rolling. Equally compelling is footage of the dauntless young lawyers, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, who saw much to be gained in one couple's belief in their rights and even more to be cut away.
Details
The Loving Story
Directed by Nancy Buirski
Icarus Films
Opens December 10, Maysles Cinema
Related: Director's Interview: The Loving Story
Grey Villet: A Storyteller Is Seen With New Eyes
On Exhibit: Grey Villet's Photographs of The Lovings
Directed by Nancy Buirski
Icarus Films
Opens December 10, Maysles Cinema
Related: Director's Interview: The Loving Story
Grey Villet: A Storyteller Is Seen With New Eyes
On Exhibit: Grey Villet's Photographs of The Lovings
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
GREY VILLET: THE LOVINGS
Grey Villet: Richard and Mildred Loving in the spring of 1965
ICP: Grey Villet and the Loving Story
A must-see post on Wednesday's New York Times Lens Blog:
The Heart of the Matter: Love
Related:
New York Times Sunday Magazine: The Case of Loving v. Bigotry
John Edwin Mason: Grey Villet, Interracial Love, and Drag Racing, 1965
International Center of Photography Exhibit: The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet
The Loving Story Movie Website
Labels:
Civil Rights photographs,
Grey Villet,
ICP,
inter-racial marriage,
Lens Blog,
miscegenation,
photography exhibits,
Supreme Court,
The Lovings
Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe, NM, USA
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Based on an anonymous tip that the Lovings were illegally living as a married couple in Caroline County, sheriff Garnett Brooks and two deputies burst into the Lovings’ bedroom on July 11, 1958 at 2 a.m. When Richard explained that the woman in bed with him was his wife, Brooks replied, “Not here she’s not.”
HBO and the Museum of Tolerance invite you and a guest to a special screening of
THE LOVING STORY
An exclusive screening for Museum of Tolerance members only
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 7:00pm
A racially-charged criminal trial and a heart-rending love story converge in this documentary about Mildred and Richard Loving, a part-black, part-Indian woman married to a white man in Jim Crow era Virginia. Thrown into rat-infested jails and exiled from their hometown for 25 years, the Lovings fought back and changed history. They were paired with two young and ambitious lawyers who were driven to pave the way for social justice and equal rights through a historic Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia. THE LOVING STORY takes us on a journey into the heart of race relations in America. But, in the end, it is a poignant love story of two people who simply wanted to live in the place they called home.
This film, with its contemporary parallels, will live on as record of monumental change, not just in civil rights then, but in the human right to pursue happiness regardless of color, gender or creed.
Q & A with Director Nancy Buirski and Producer Elisabeth Haviland James.
Dessert reception to follow.
There is no charge for the screening but pre-registration is required.
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT
Download a flyer here
More about The Loving Story movie here
View Grey Villet's photographs of the Lovings in Los Angeles during photo la, January 12 - 16, at Monroe Gallery of Photography Booth B-500.
Related: New York Times feature: Grey Villet's photographs of the Lovings; International Center of Photography exhibit
John Edwin Mason: Grey Villet, Interracial Love, and Drag Racing, 1965
Friday, December 30, 2011
The Case of Loving v. Bigotry
Hands of Mildred and Richard Loving on their kitchen table, King and Queen County, Va
Photograph by Grey Villet
January 1, 2012
In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings — Mildred, who was of African-American and Native American descent, and Richard, a bricklayer with a blond buzz cut — were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. In January, the International Center of Photography is mounting a show of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965. That exhibit is complemented by an HBO documentary, ‘‘The Loving Story,’’ directed by Nancy Buirski, which will be shown on HBO on Feb. 14. The film tells of the Lovings’ struggle to return home after living in exile in Washington, where Mildred, gentle in person but persistent on paper, wrote pleading letters to Robert F. Kennedy and the A.C.L.U. Two lawyers took their case to the Supreme Court, which struck down miscegenation laws in more than a dozen states. The Lovings’ belief in the simple rightness of their plea never wavered. Asked by one of his lawyers if he had a message for the Supreme Court, Richard said he did: ‘‘Tell the court I love my wife.’’
Julie Bosman
Special screening in Los Angeles January 10, 2012 with HBO at the Museum of Tolerance.
Grey Villet's photographs are available from Monroe Gallery of Photography. View selected photographs of the Lovings during photo la at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Booth B-500.
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