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41 Howard L.J. 229 (1997-1998)
Crossing the Color Line: A Historical Assessment and Personal Narrative of Loving v. Virginia

handle is hein.journals/howlj41 and id is 237 raw text is: ESSAY Crossing the Color Line: A Historical Assessment and Personal Narrative of Loving v. Virginia ROBERT A. PRATT* On many evenings just before sunset, my grandmother and I would sit on our front porch. We lived in the rural black community of Battery, Virginia (approximately forty-five miles east of Richmond) which is located in Essex County. Suddenly, I would hear my grand- mother remark: Well, I see Richard's gone in for the night. I would then turn my head to follow the direction of her gaze, where I would see a white man driving his car down the dirt road leading to a house owned by my great-uncle. It was a two-story wood-frame house, which was one of the biggest in the neighborhood. Most of the rooms were usually rented out to various family-friends, relatives, and occa- sionally to the families of those who worked at the sawmill-jointly operated by my great-uncle and his older brother, my grandfather. Raymond and Garnet Hill, along with their two sons, lived there for a time in the early 1960s. Garnet's younger sister, Mildred, was a frequent visitor, especially on weekends. Mildred's three children usually accompanied her on these visits, but her husband never did- * Associate Professor, University of Georgia. B.A., 1980, Virginia Commonwealth Uni- versity; M.A., 1982, Ph.D., 1987, University of Virginia. Portions of this article were first presented at a conference hosted by The Catholic Univer- sity of America from November 19-21, 1997. The conference, Law and the Politics of Marriage: Loving v. Virginia after Thirty Years, was co-sponsored by The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, Howard University School of Law, and Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark School of Law. I am grateful to Professor David 0. Coolidge and the other conference planners for the invitation to participate. I am especially indebted to Mrs. Mildred Loving for her willingness to cooperate with this project. 1998 Vol. 41 No. 2