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Found some great photographs of the Tuskegee Airmen by photographer Toni Frissell in the digital collections of the Library of Congress. Ramitelli, Italy, March, 1945. Yes, just in time for the movie. Part one of two. Enjoy!
Just 45 years ago, 16 states deemed marriages between two people of different races illegal.
But in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of Richard Perry Loving, who was white, and his wife, Mildred Loving, of African American and Native American descent.
The case changed history - and was captured on film by LIFE photographer Grey Villet, whose black-and-white photographs are now set to go on display at the International Center of Photography.
Twenty images show the tenderness and family support enjoyed by Mildred and Richard and their three children, Peggy, Sidney and Donald.
The children, unaware of the struggles their parents face, are captured by Villet as blissfully happy as they play in the fields near their Virginia home or share secrets with their parents on the couch.
Their parents, caught sharing a kiss on their front porch, appear more worry-stricken.
And it is no wonder - eight years prior, the pair had married in the District of Columbia to evade the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which banned any white person marrying any non-white person.
But when they returned to Virginia, police stormed into their room in the middle of the night and they were arrested.
The pair were found guilty of miscegenation in 1959 and were each sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for 25 years if they left Virginia.
They moved back to the District of Columbia, where they began the long legal battle to erase their criminal records - and justify their relationship.
Following vocal support from the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, the Lovings won the fight - with the Supreme Court branding Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law unconstitutional in 1967.
It wrote in its decision: ‘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.’ [Read more]
Railway Porters’ Club, Friday 9 December 1904
Former lacrosse champion Lige Scurry opened a social club for black people on East Hastings on the site that would later be home to the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret. He called it the Railway Porters’ Club because that was one of the few occupations open to black men in Vancouver and porters could rent rooms there if they were from out of town or new arrivals. Black women also frequented the club, including those working in the sex trade. The club was nicely done up, according to the Province newspaper, and “its dozen or more handsomely-fitted rooms include billiard and card parlors, and a bar sumptuously furnished.”
It wasn’t long before police raided the club, claiming it was a front for prostitution. Whether it was or not, police failed to produce any evidence and those arrested in the raid were released except for Lige Scurry. At his trial, Scurry’s lawyer argued that it was nothing more than a social club:
The women went to Scurry’s premises merely for the innocent purpose of getting their meals in a house that was open to colored people and to colored people only … All classes of people in Vancouver had their various resorts. For the well-to-do there were the better class clubs. For those who liked that sort of thing there were various tea rooms, and for those who were inclined that way there were the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A.
In light of the lack of evidence, the judge ignored the claim that the Railway Porters’ Club operated as a brothel. Instead, he convicted Scurry of selling liquor without a licence and sentenced him to three months hard labour and a $50 fine.
Source: Vancouver Daily Province, via Past Tense Vancouver on Wordpress
When Mildred and Richard Loving married in Washington, D.C. in 1958, they didn’t think they were breaking the law. Both were from the small town of Central Point, Virginia. Mildred was of African-American and Native American decent and Richard was white. They did know it was illegal for them to marry in their state-as well as 15 others—which is why they left to tie the knot. Within a month of returning home, police burst into their bedroom in the middle of the night and arrested them under the state’s anti-miscegenation law. They were sentenced to a one-year in prison term that could be suspended if they left Virginia.
Related Link: Kentucky Church Bans Interracial Couples from Becoming Members
Banished to Washington, D.C., Mildred Loving, who did not consider herself a political person, wrote about her plight to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The American Civil Liberties Union took up the case and brought it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In 1967, in a landmark Civil Rights ruling, the court struck down America’s laws against interracial marriage.
On the 40 th anniversary of the ruling, Loving issued a statement that read, “I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life.”
In 1965, Life Magazine sent photographer Grey Villet to photograph the Lovings and their three children. Writing for the New York Times, Villet’s widow Barbara recalled that he approached the assignment with the aim of creating a tender family portrait, not an overtly political statement. “He chose as he did in every essay…to seek out the literal heart of the matter: a love story.” However, the images were utterly groundbreaking exactly because of the intimate and emotionally transparent way they portrayed a taboo subject.
Filmmaker Nancy Buirski rediscovered Villet’s photographs while making a documentary for HBO called The Loving Story. Twenty of the images are on display at the International Center of Photography in New York City from January 20 through May 6, 2012. The Loving Story will debut on February 14.
The second photo is of their three children, Peggy, Sidney, and Donald.
Taken in 1958 “A Great Day in Harlem” was a phograph which encapsulated the New York jazz scene, 57 of the greatest historical jazz musicians all in one show. You have Theolonius Monk, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Horace Silver.
(Source: warriorsrise)
On January 22, 1944, the Allies began their assault of Anzio, Italy during World War II. Pictured on the Anzio beachhead are members of the 99th Fighter Squadron (aka the Tuskegee Airmen) of the Army Air Forces, an African American unit, which provided crucial air support during the invasion.
Tintype circa 1888 of a woman from the Sloman-Bell family in Ontario; her relatives were former slaves who escaped the US & settled in Canada.
Rick Bell Family — Brock University Archives, Brock University
Source
Maybe it’s unfair to reduce Etta James to one song, especially one that links her directly to Celine Dion. Yet, as inescapable as “At Last” has become, it’s impossible to exhaust. All the traces of what Etta James had done, and where she was headed, are present in that song, if only in trace form. It may not be all there was to her as an artist, but James wasn’t hiding anything there, either. And if her bitter life story and musical evolution are any indication, “At Last” tells it all, backward and forward. - Bethlehem Shoals
