I sleep on my cot,
wake up on my cot.
At mealtimes
food is handed
through the little window
cut in the bars.
I use my commode,
bathe in my little sink,
hold my belly close,
sorry this baby
been in jail before
it ever sees the world.
I live under the eyes
of my white guards—
those two deputies—
FIVE nights,
SIX days.
On Thursday,
my daddy comes
and pays my $1,000 bond.
Everyone we know
must have pitched in.
First I get pregnant,
get pregnant again,
drop out of school,
then I get ARRESTED.
I am so ashamed.
I don’t know why they
decide to let me out.
I go home
to my parents’ house—
the house where me and Richard
were arrested.
But I get to be with my Sidney.
Richard at his parents’ house—
the Loving house.
They say,
“Keep apart.”
We surely do not want
to go back to jail.
Doesn’t matter one hoot
that we married in
Washington, D.C.
Here
in Virginia
can’t be married.
We’re told it’s true
in most every other state as well.
No race mixing.
That’s what they say.
Our baby will be born
before the court date.
Me with my parents,
Richard with his.
We wait.
MILDRED
A COUPLE WEEKS LATER
AUGUST 1958
I live at home
like I always did—
wake to bird songs,
hoe in the garden
while Sidney sits in the grass.
I shuck corn,
pluck a chicken now and then,
help Mama cook.
I watch sparrows feed
their new-hatched babies
in the gnarly apple tree.
For two weeks I watch—
and still
no Richard.
Richard isn’t supposed
to come over.
We are living a lot of
suppose-tos.
But is he really not going to see me?
Is he relieved?
Bye bye, Bean.
Is that what he’s thinking?
Garnet says,
“Be cool, Millie.
You just got home.
He doesn’t wanna go back to jail.
And neither do you.”
So I wait.
I play with Sidney.
I WAIT for this new baby to be born.
I WAIT for our court date.
I weed the string beans and turnips.
I hoe between cornstalks.
I knit a baby bonnet.
Sidney’s the only thing that holds my mind.
I can’t stop thinking,
WHAT IF . . .
What if Richard is done with me?
What if I have this baby alone?
What if I end up all alone?
One day, I’m out washing collards
at the well
like I always do.
When I hear a car.
I turn around slow
hoping I’m well hid
by bushes.
Once you get arrested
in your bed
it’s hard to be easy.
But it’s Ray Green’s car.
And who should pop out
but my husband,
Richard Loving.
I stand, smile.
He smiles.
He cocks his head
toward the backyard,
and we meet behind the house
away from the road.
He wraps his arms around me
and lifts his chin
so I slide my cheek against his neck.
I remember what a good fit we are.
He pets me
all the way down my back.
He turns me sideways
and strokes my belly.
Tears seep out, slide down my cheeks
but they are happy tears
that wet his shirt.
We still haven’t said one thing
but he’s told me everything
I need to know.
Finally he says,
“I’m not supposed to be here.”
“I know.”
“Ray just dropped me by.
I can’t drive here, Bean.
If someone sees my car—”
“I know.”
By and by,
Ray drives right up into the yard,
to behind the house, yells,
“COME ON, MAN.”
I let him go.
He says, “I’ll be back.”
He climbs in the car,
hunkers down,
and they drive off.
RICHARD
She’s standing at the well
holding a bunch of greens
like they was a bouquet of wedding flowers
carrying my child
smiling at me
that deep warm
smile.
Any doubts I might’ve had—
like this being just too much trouble—
drifted away on the wind.
My country gal.
I am her husband.
MILDRED
TWO MONTHS LATER
OCTOBER 1958
Mama boils water,
Lola Loving helps.
I know more what to expect
this time around.
Still, I scream.
Garnet has taken Sidney away
so he doesn’t hear.
Lola Loving says,
“Push, Honey. Push now.”
I scream and push.
Scream and push.
Seems to go on forever.
“Here it is. Here he is.
A healthy baby boy.”
The two grandmas
ooh and ahh.
I cry.
Everyone cries.
Because this miracle
just happened.
A baby is born.
“When will Richard come?”
I want to know.
Lola says,
“By and by. Just be careful.”
Richard comes that same night.
I hand him the baby
wrapped in a blanket.
“Go ahead,” I say,
“He’s yours too.”
He takes the baby and
what can I say about Richard’s face?
Like a warm rain washes
away all the lines,
turning his face
soft and smooth.
“What’s his name?”
Richard wants to know.
“I’ve been waiting for you
to name him,” I say.
“He looks like . . . Donald.
How ’bout Donald?”
Richard’s right.
He looks like a Donald.
“Okay,” I say.
“Don.”
He cradles our Donald,
draws the back of his wrist
soft as duck down
across the baby’s cheek.
Donny doesn’t even wake up.
Now the baby is born,
we’ll go to Washington, D.C.—
the four of us—
and live with my cousin Alex.
We are a family now.
Who ever heard
of a nest of birds
flying off
soon as the eggs hatch?
Right before Washington,
I have my hearing.
They were waiting
for the baby to be born.
I stand before Justice of the Peace
Edward Stehl III
in the Bowling Green courthouse.
I am told I acted
“unlawfully and feloniously”
by marrying a white man.
Our lawyer, Mr. Beazley,
advises me to plead
NOT GUILTY,
just like Richard did
at his hearing in July.
1958
October 1958 The Youth March for Integrated Schools, Washington D.C.
And then I go home
to my baby
and little Sidney.
You’d think that
they’d want
us to be married,
what with a child and all.
But it’s our beautiful brown baby
that is the problem.
This perfect baby is the result
of race mixing.
This child is the very reason
they don’t want us married.
MILDRED
THREE MONTHS LATER
JANUARY 6, 1959
BOWLING GREEN COURTHOUSE
On weekends
Richard likes to lie on the floor
with the baby on his belly—
both of them napping,
Sidney toddling around them.
But weekdays
Richard drives ninety miles
to Caroline County
and lays bricks.
At least
he gets to be near home
while he’s working.
Washington, D.C., is crowded—
where we live.
It’s all we can afford—
shared with Alex and his wife.
Lights outside our building
shine all night
so you can hardly sleep.
Not just city lights
but city sounds—
sirens, honking, yelling.
Inside
the baby cries—
I get up and feed him,
keep him quiet so Richard can sleep.
I don’t fit in this city
with its hard edges.
I long to lie on the soft ground
tucked into Richard
in one of the many places
I fit along his side
with the baby on my chest—
Sidney on Richard’s—
looking up at the stars.
What with all the city lights
shining all night long—
the stars are washed away.
Tuesday morning we wake
to cars honking
rather than birds singing.
We set out
for Caroline County—
though I know there will be no lying
on a blanket
stretched out on the grass—
no looking up at stars.
Still, we turn on to Passing Road,
stop in to see his parents,
then mine—
just long enough to drop off
their grandsons—
then we carry on
to Bowling Green courthouse
for our trial.
Sheriff Brooks is here.
He’s big and mean
with hands like hams
and a piglet voice.
I hear him squealing
to his deputy—
I hear him say,
“There’s the white trash
and his nigger.”
We pretend not to hear,
but surely it was meant
for our ears.
We stand before
Judge Leon Bazile.
He tells us we can have a jury trial
but our lawyer, Mr. Beazley, says,
“You were married in Washington, D.C.
Right?
Richard is white
and you are colored.
Right?
Is there any point in trying
to have a jury dispute that?”
No.
Would a jury help us?
Not likely.
Outside our section
what Virginian
is going to sympathize
with us?
We are
race mixing.
This time Mr. Beazley
advises us to plead
GUILTY.
We are married.
We have a child.
We are a family.
Of this we are . . .
Guilty.
Judge Bazile pronounces our sentence—
we can spend one year in jail
or he’ll suspend our sentence
for twenty-five years
provided
we leave Caroline County
and the state of Virginia
now
and don’t return together
for twenty-five years.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS?
Twenty-five years
without our new little family
in the backyard
dancing
to my brothers’ music?
No family dinners?
No pies at the kitchen table?
I’m thinking,
in twenty-five years—
that’s 1984.
I’ll be FORTY-FOUR.
Richard will be fifty.
Sidney and Don will be grown men.
The judge asks,
“Do you have anything to say?”
I’m fighting tears.
No, nothing to say.
I turn to Mr. Beazley.
“Does that mean we can come back
in 1984?”
He says,
“No. That means your banishment
could start over again
from that moment.
They would re-sentence you.”
We pay our court fee—
$36.29 each—
we start toward the door
to head back to Washington, D.C.
Mr. Beazley sees just how sad
we are
to be leaving home.
He says
we could visit our families
in Caroline County
as long as we don’t stay together
overnight.
We carry that whisper of hope
as we drive off
to pick up our boys—
then drive ninety more miles to
Cousin Alex Byrd’s
hot house in our Washington slum.
SOUTHERN POLITICIANS’ “MASSIVE RESISTANCE” EFFORTS ARE THWARTED IN THE COURTS
JANUARY 1959
On JANUARY 19, 1959, three federal judges ruled that closing schools in a public school system denied the displaced students equality before the law, and ordered that the schools be reopened.
On the same day, the Virginia Supreme Court held that Governor Almond had violated the state constitution by closing schools.
The battle for school integration was not over,
BUT THE TIDE WAS TURNING.
MILDRED
TWO MONTHS LATER
MARCH 1959
Horns blast.
Breaks screech.
People fight.
Garbage
sets on the curb
reeking to high heaven.
Old gum stamped black
into sidewalks
dirties our path.
Traffic whizzes by
even on Neal Street
where we live.
How I miss walking
the lane to get the mail,
grass soft under
my bare feet—
listening to chickadees,
wrens,
sparrows—
Cousin Alex and his wife, Laura, are real nice,
letting us live with them
and all—
I mean we help pay,
so there’s something in it for them.
Still, it’s crowded
and who wants to
go outside
into this city
that is hardly
even on the same earth
as Caroline County?
Come the end of March,
I can’t stay in this city
any longer.
We drive home to Caroline County
for Easter.
The babies will stay with me
at my parents’ house
and Richard will go sleep
at his parents’.
We’re having a good time,
with Lola and Twilley,
Richard’s parents,
and his sister Margaret
at my parents’
playing with
our babies.
Garnet, Otha, Lewis,
Doochy, and Dump are here.
Oh, it’s so FINE.
’Course other people
come by.
Ray and Annamae Green
and Percy Fortune.
It’s like old times,
laughing and joking.
People are comin’ and goin’
all day.
I collect some recently laid
chicken eggs
so we can boil ’em up,
color them
for a hunt in the grass.
Mama’s here in the barn with me,
collecting a big ham
saved for tomorrow’s
Easter dinner.
Jack starts barking up a storm.
We come out of the barn.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Sheriff Brooks drives up
in his black Ford—
got his police dog.
That dog, barking and snarling
looks mean as the sheriff.
I see Richard duck into the woods.
Sheriff says,
“I know he’s here.
I see his car yonder.
You are violatin’ your parole
and you are both under arrest.”
“Mr. Brooks,” I say
right polite,
“Our lawyer, Mr. Beazley,
says we can come, long as
we don’t cohabitate.
I’m sleeping here
and Richard’s going to his parents’
for overnight.”
“Wrong,” he squeals
like someone grabbed his piglet tail.
“Judge Bazile says
you cannot come into Virginia
together.”
Richard must’ve been
listening
and he comes up
behind
and puts his hand
on my back.
Sheriff already won the battle,
but he can’t
stop fighting.
“Y’all come with me.
Don’t you run away
or I sic this dog on you.”
Loving vs. Virginia Page 7