In 1958, when Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter got married, their marriage was a crime in Virginia, where they lived, and in 20 other states. Richard was white; Mildred, "colored."
Even at the time, authorities tended to look past interracial marriages. But five weeks after their wedding, the Lovings woke up to find the local sheriff and his men standing by their bed, flashlights in hand.
"Who is that woman you're sleeping with?" the sheriff demanded of Richard. "That is my wife," Loving answered. Both were dragged off to jail, eventually convicted of felonies and banned from Virginia.
"They would spend the next nine years trying to get home," director-producer Nancy Buirski tells us in "The Loving Story," an absorbing and poignant look at how two people who just wanted to live happily ever after wound up changing the laws of the land.
With no narration and only a few on-screen titles, "The Loving Story" is told mostly in the voices of those who lived it. Fortunately, the Lovings were interviewed and recorded extensively as their case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court via the American Civil Liberties Union.
In fact, we first meet them in a scene in their living room that feels like eavesdropping. They are getting ready to go somewhere, maybe church. Mildred puts on daughter Peggy's socks, turning one to hide a hole. The children (there were also two sons, Sidney and Don) play around the house. Richard, stoic, with a blond crew cut, sits quietly.
But the camera keeps being drawn back to Mildred's face, wide-eyed and hopeful, serene but also intense. Mildred is the star of this story.
Growing up in tiny Central Point, Va., the Lovings had known each other since they were kids. Central Point is painted by its inhabitants as something of an idyllic place, where the races — blacks, whites and American Indians — lived together in harmony, brought together by music, drag racing and the need to help one another out.
But a sheriff who seemed to have a vendetta pursued Richard and Mildred, eventually driving them away from their families. What happened then, after they settled miserably in Washington, is fascinating and improbable, as Mildred's handwritten letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy leads this private and nonpolitical couple to America's highest court.
The Supreme Court's 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision held that states couldn't restrict marriage based on race. Two of the ACLU lawyers who argued the case participated in the documentary, as did friends and family, including two of the Lovings' children. But the remarkable film footage that gives the documentary so much immediacy was shot in 16mm by Hope Ryden and Abbot Mills and has been newly discovered. Also included are still photos by Grey Villet of Life magazine, which were given to the family in 1967.
Mildred Loving, who died in 2008, apparently didn't think much of the 1996 movie "Mr. and Mrs. Loving," starring Lela Rochon and Timothy Hutton. She would like "The Loving Story," especially hearing her husband (killed in a car accident in 1975) say, "I love my wife." That's one thing viewers will remember; another is the final freeze frame on Mildred's face.
"The Loving Story"
When 8 p.m. Tuesday • Where HBO • More info hbo.com/documentaries/the-loving-story
More for Black History Month
"The Loving Story" is one of several Black History Month offerings on PBS and cable this February. Here are some more:
• "Independent Lens: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-75," 10 p.m. Sunday on PBS. A documentary explores the black power movement via its music.
• "2012 BET Honors," 8 p.m. Monday on BET.
• "Slavery by Another Name," 9 p.m. Monday on PBS. Laurence Fishburne narrates a look at racist labor practices in the South for decades after the Civil War.
• "Frontline: The Interrupters," 9 p.m. Tuesday on PBS. The Chicago program CeaseFire uses former gang leaders to protect communities.
• "Independent Lens: More Than a Month," 10 p.m. Feb. 19 on PBS. A black filmmaker campaigns to get rid of Black History Month.
• "NAACP Image Awards," 7 p.m. Feb. 17 on NBC.
• "Memphis," 8 p.m. Feb. 24 on PBS. A white Memphis disc jockey loves and plays black music in a rousing musical that won the 2010 Tony award. ("Memphis" is also available on DVD from Shout Factory, and it will play the Fox in St. Louis on May 1-13.)
• "American Masters: Cab Calloway Sketches," 10 p.m. Feb. 27 on PBS. The jazz performer is profiled.
