My husband posted a pic collage on social media a few days back to commemorate Loving Day. Admittedly, I was less than enthusiastic considering, uh I don’t know…EVERYTHING.
That’s when Aunt Mag and Uncle John popped up in my memory.
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| Yay. Loving Day. |
That’s when Aunt Mag and Uncle John popped up in my memory.
I grew up seeing their portrait on the family’s upright Mason & Hamlin piano; and, in passing at least once, my mom explained:
That's your Aunt Mag and Uncle John. People said he was an old white man, but no one ever really talked about it.
I was young enough to remember that and young enough to be puzzled.
IT? What was IT, and why was IT a secret?
I moved on from my confusion and, I guess innocence, until about FIVE YEARS AGO when I was introduced to Loving Day, and out of nowhere, the light broke like a two-by-four splintering on my head:
OMG, nobody talked about Uncle John being white because his marriage to Aunt Mag was ILLEGAL.
Aunt Mag was my grandmother’s aunt.
Her family – my family – survived a triple lynching, subsequent banishment from the Missouri town in which they lived, then hung around in a neighboring county for another ten or fifteen years before moving north to Milwaukee.
This family who survived state-sanctioned murder and land stolen that could’ve produced generational wealth, kept that particular tragedy a secret that was so secure it took me years to question the gaps and unearth the facts.
In the shadow of Loving Day, I realized Mag and John’s marriage -- the one thing worth celebrating in their generation besides the fact that THEY SURVIVED -- had to be kept secret if the marriage was to remain intact and result in descendants like me.
On Loving Day, I quietly celebrated Mildred and Richard Loving and their legal team. I also remembered Aunt Mag and the unspoken Uncle John for sojourning on even as their fellow citizens overwhelmingly decided to criminalize marriages like theirs.
Two things can be true at the same time, right?
Honor the people who overturn legislation; and, meditate -- just for a moment -- that our systems actually condoned and enforced such legislature.
...and acknowledge, articulate (like with words) the cruelty of those systems, the silence of citizens (who hopefully knew better) and vow to make our systems better so the next generation won't be confused about their own stories when they're in the mid-forties.
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| Who Woulda Thought? |
I was young enough to remember that and young enough to be puzzled.
IT? What was IT, and why was IT a secret?
I moved on from my confusion and, I guess innocence, until about FIVE YEARS AGO when I was introduced to Loving Day, and out of nowhere, the light broke like a two-by-four splintering on my head:
OMG, nobody talked about Uncle John being white because his marriage to Aunt Mag was ILLEGAL.
Aunt Mag was my grandmother’s aunt.
Her family – my family – survived a triple lynching, subsequent banishment from the Missouri town in which they lived, then hung around in a neighboring county for another ten or fifteen years before moving north to Milwaukee.
This family who survived state-sanctioned murder and land stolen that could’ve produced generational wealth, kept that particular tragedy a secret that was so secure it took me years to question the gaps and unearth the facts.
In the shadow of Loving Day, I realized Mag and John’s marriage -- the one thing worth celebrating in their generation besides the fact that THEY SURVIVED -- had to be kept secret if the marriage was to remain intact and result in descendants like me.
On Loving Day, I quietly celebrated Mildred and Richard Loving and their legal team. I also remembered Aunt Mag and the unspoken Uncle John for sojourning on even as their fellow citizens overwhelmingly decided to criminalize marriages like theirs.
Two things can be true at the same time, right?
Honor the people who overturn legislation; and, meditate -- just for a moment -- that our systems actually condoned and enforced such legislature.
...and acknowledge, articulate (like with words) the cruelty of those systems, the silence of citizens (who hopefully knew better) and vow to make our systems better so the next generation won't be confused about their own stories when they're in the mid-forties.
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