Loving vs. Virginia by Patricia Hruby Powell

Summary From acclaimed author Patricia Hruby Powell comes the story of a landmark civil rights case, told in spare and gorgeous verse. In 1955, in Caroline County, Virginia, amidst segregation and prejudice, injustice and cruelty, two teenagers fell in love. Their life together broke the law, but their determination would change it. Richard and Mildred Loving were at the heart of a Supreme Court case that legalized marriage between races, and a story of the devoted couple who faced discrimination, fought it, and won. (Goodreads)

Mildred July 1956 Richard once said, “It could be worse, Bean. If you was the white one and I was the colored one, people saw us together? They’d lynch me. We can do this.” I’m not real dark-- ‘bout the color of a grocery sack-- and I have good hair, but I surely couldn’t pass. There are plenty of people from our section, who are mixed like I am-- and one day, when they’re grown, they leave home and never ever come back. And we know they passed into white society-- away from where everyone knows you, where everyone truly cares about you. I feel sorry for them who pass-- and don’t come home. (Page 82-83)

Richard August 1958 She’s standing at the well holding a bunch of greens like they were a bouquet of wedding flowers carrying my child smiling at me that deep warm smile. Any doubts I might’ve had-- like this just being too much trouble-- drifted away on the wind. My country gal. I am her husband. (Page 142)

In addition to citing century-old cases, Judge Leon Bazile made his own statement. He wrote: “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 intent for the races to mix.” Mildred January 1965 Judge Bazile did not change his mind. He says Richard and I committed a most serious crime. We’ll be known as felons for the rest of our lives. Mr. Cohen reads me the judge’s closing statement over the phone. I’m trying to sort it out. God put each race of people on their own continent? And meant them to stay there? Didn’t Judge Bazile go to school? Didn’t he learn that God put the Indians on the America continent? Cherokee? Rappahannock? And then the white settlers arrived and stole this land from the “red” people. White people stole black people from the “black” continent. Just WHO is guilty? Didn’t that judge go to school? (Page 212-213)

Extension Why does Mildred feel sorry for the people who can “pass?” What is the tone of the excerpt “Richard August 1958?” What is a word or phrase that supports that tone? What is the judge’s reason for not changing his mind about the charges against Mildred and Richard? How does Mildred’s response illustrate irony?