In 1950, a young man from Central Point, Virginia, went seven miles down the road to hear some music. Seven brothers named the Jeters were on that night, playing bluegrass in a farmhouse. The young man had come for the music, but couldn’t help noticing a young woman in the audience. The man, Richard Loving, was white; the woman, Mildred Jeter, was black and Cherokee. Seventeen years later, as a result of their meeting, the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, along with anti-miscegenation laws in fifteen other states, ending the legal prohibitions against interracial marriage.
On view until May 6th at the International Center of Photography, “The Loving Story” highlights the human element of the Loving v. Virginia case, bringing the ardor that fuelled the Lovings’ half-decade of appeals into heart-rending focus. The exhibit is mostly comprised of unpublished photographs of the Lovings at home, which Grey Villet, a Life magazine photojournalist, made in 1965. Only three of Villet’s photographs of the couple together ever appeared in the magazine, and they were far from the most powerful among them. Thankfully, Villet had sent seventy prints to the Lovings as a gift, which the filmmakers Nancy Buirski and Elisabeth Haviland James discovered while researching a documentary, also called “The Loving Story,” that will air on HBO on Valentine’s Day. Here’s a look at Villet’s photos.
© Estate of Grey Villet.