Loving before loving : a marriage in Black and White
(Book)

Committed to the struggle for civil rights, in the late 1950s Joan Steinau marched and protested as a white ally, a young woman coming to terms with her own racism. She soon fell in love with and married the Black writer Julius Lester, establishing a partnership that was long and multifaceted but not free of the politics of race and gender. Over time, as the women's movement dawned, feminism helped Lester find her voice, her pansexuality, and the courage to be herself. Braiding intellectual, personal, and political history, Lester tells the story of her fight for love and justice before, during, and after the Supreme Court's landmark 1967 decision striking down bans on interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia. She describes her own shifts in consciousness, from an activist climbing police barricades by day, reading and writing late into the night, to a woman navigating the coming-out process in midlife. Speaking candidly about every facet of her life, Lester illuminates her intimate journey to fulfillment and healing. Loving before Loving is a riveting and deeply personal memoir that eloquently communicates the deep pains of sexism and racism--and presents a guide to transforming those pains into strength and meaningful progress. Lester's search for a path that allows her to become the person she wants to be offers insights for anyone struggling for equality within a patriarchal society. --,From dust jacket.