colleague whom I thought I could trust. I was wrong: She brought
my d aug ht er t o my pa rent s’ hou se a nd t old t hem what I ha d done.
When we got back, my parents said the only way they would give
me my daughter back was if I left Smiley. I refused. They filed a
lawsuit claiming I was unfit to mother my daughter because I
abandoned her. I wanted to fight for her, but if I had tried, the state
would have taken her away. So I signed the papers and gave my
parents custody. It was heartbreaking. I hardly got a chance to say
goodbye; I came by the house one last time to rock her to sleep. My
family didn’t call until 20 years later, when my father was dying,
and I saw my daughter for the first time again before he passed
away. She was in her twenties. We stayed in touch a little until my
mom died a few years later; then she cut off contact. I have regrets,
of course—I wonder if I could have
run away with her. Smiley and I
were married for 34 years before
divorcing. We faced prejudice, but
we had good times and five beau-
tiful kids together. I still live in the
house where we raised them, and
it’s full of happy memories.
LESLIE UGGAMS, 73, is black; she
married a white man, Grahame,
in 1965: I met my husband, who is
Australian, while I was singing in
S yd ney i n 1 964. We h it it of f r ig ht
away; not long after, he visited
me while I was performing in Los
Angeles at the time of the Watts
Riots. He knew about racial ten-
sions in America, but suddenly it
was there for him to see with his
own eyes: protesters and police
clashing, buildings on fire, and, in
less than a week, 34 people dead.
We both felt pain. We had made
a pact to live our lives together,
so what affected me and my race
affected him. Thankfully, liv-
ing in New York and L.A., we
didn’t really have discriminatory
experiences at home, but we did
when we traveled, like when we
went down South for Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.’s funeral in 1968.
We were staying in this hotel
in Atlanta, and one of the orga-
nizers knocked on our door and
said, “You two are staying in the
same room together?” Grahame
said, “This is my wife. I’m not
going anywhere.” And I just thought, Oh my God, where have I
been? I remember also receiving a letter from Detroit that was
a dd re s se d t o Gra ha me. It sa id he w a s goi ng t o have “pol k a- dot
children” and used the N-word. You don’t want to get mail like
t hat , but it d id n’t m a ke me f r ig ht ene d— or h i m. Pe ople out side ,
that’s their opinion. It’s ignorance. Now our daughter is mar-
ried to a white man, and it’s more accepted. Every now and then
she gets a look, but I tell her it’s because she’s so beautiful.
THE 1990S
“A policeman thought my husband was
kidnapping my child.”
In the decades following the Loving decision, black and
white spouses still faced shocking racism.
JILLIAN WHEELER, 69, is white; she married Dempsey, an Afri-
can American, in 2004: I will never forget this run-in we had
with the cops in 1996, on the way home from vacation. At 3:00
A.M. Dempsey pulled into a gas station to refuel. I was asleep in
the backseat, and my nine-year-old, Matthew—my son from an
earlier relationship—was up front when a cop car pulled in and
circled our vehicle. This cop just drives around repeatedly, star-
ing at Dempsey. Dempsey rolled his
w indow dow n to see what was up,
and the officer said he’d run a stop
sign. He hadn’t. Based on his dis-
dainful expression, Dempsey and I
thought the cop was just suspicious
of a dark man with a blond kid. I
sat up and explained that we were
a family headed home to Austin,
Te x a s , a n d h e l e f t u s a l o n e. We w e r e
both shaken. I mean, this police-
man basically thought my husband
was kidnapping my child. I was
indignant, but Dempsey felt fear.
He’s more afraid in situations like
that; I’m more apt to be pissed off
because I assume the police aren’t
going to hurt me. Luckily, we live in
liberal Austin. At home we’re not
talking about our race; we’re pinch-
ing ourselves at how lucky we are to
have found each other.
AMY WISE,51, is white; she mar-
ried Jamie, who is black, in 1993:
In 1994 Jamie and I were at a store
exchanging baby gifts when we
ran into two friends, also a white
woman and a black man. The
cashier started acting strange.
I joked that he thought we were
stealing, but he didn’t laugh.
When we walked outside, police
surrounded us. They handcuffed
Jamie and told him and our black
male friend to get on the ground.
When Jamie said he hadn’t done
anything wrong, they put a gun to
his head. I was so shocked I went
into false labor. We learned that, five days earlier, two black men
had committed an armed robbery, and the police assumed it was
them, back to do it again—this time w ith receipts in hand and a
pregnant woman! They eventually let all of us go. I wanted to sue,
but Jamie said: “This is the way it is for black men, Amy.” What’s
sad is he’s right. The same things are still happening 22 years later.
But you have to keep going. That stuff could have broken us early
on, but it didn’t. Love trumps all, no matter what.
UGGAMS AND PRATT: GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMAPRESS.COM. GRAHAM AND FAMILY: MICHAEL BAMBINO & CO142 glamour.com
Ta l k / In the News
Then: “We had made a pact to live our lives together,
which meant what affected me and my race affected
him,” says Leslie Uggams, who married Grahame in 1965.And now: “We live in the South and still get
a lot of scowls,” says Jennifer Graham, here with her
husband, Will, and their daughter.➻