In my quest to educate myself around the history of racial conflict, I have been humbled. Marriages that have been strained to the breaking point, somehow held on.
In the movie Selma I glimpsed the fear that Martin Luther King's wife Coretta endured every day. She understood the vulnerability of her husband as he pushed for equality during the sixties. She was right to worry.
The movie The Zookeeper's Wife is a gut wrenching, and true story about a couple who hid hundreds of Jews in their animal complex during the war. She went so far as to feign attraction to a high ranking Nazi, to distract him from the crowds of refugees in her basement. Her husband suffered greatly from this, but she saw no other way to protect them.
The film Woman in Gold portrays the struggle of an Austrian woman trying to reclaim the Klimt painting of her aunt that was stolen by the Nazis. Her young lawyer doggedly waded through costly legal labyrinths for years, and all with the remarkable support of his wife. I am in the middle of creating a quilt using fabric designed to replicate it.
Hidden Figures is yet another accurate portrayal of the prejudice that was endemic in the south. Katherine and Mary were two black women who stepped into the unwelcoming territory of NASA headquarters, while earning the respect of their spouses.
My life, my freedom, and my marriage have never been under such attacks. Yet creating a mental library of such courage in the face of enormous strain, can embolden me to step into my own version of bravery.
