Married for 56 years, the couple shared an enduring love story.
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00:00Black love is a beautiful thing, isn't it?
00:02We here at Essence have the privilege of being able to highlight that all year round.
00:05But what better time to honor the love stories that we so admire than during Black History Month?
00:10We're offering you a few bite-sized breakdowns of the love stories of some of our favorite couples,
00:14the timeless and legendary ones.
00:16Welcome to Black Love.
00:19Ruby Dee and Ozzie Davis met in 1946.
00:22The two, Dee an actress from Harlem and Davis from Cogdell, Georgia,
00:25were cast in the Broadway play Jeb.
00:28It was not love at first sight.
00:30Said Dee,
00:30I really didn't like him.
00:32I thought he was a very peculiar looking person.
00:34He was as big as a string bean and had this Adam's apple that sort of stuck out.
00:38He was strictly from the country.
00:40She added,
00:40But I do remember one day he was on stage and he played the part of a returning soldier.
00:45And he at one point was slowly and deliberately tying his tie in his soldier's uniform.
00:49I remember sitting in the audience and looking up at him and something very peculiar happened.
00:53I hadn't been thinking about him in a particular way and I had no romantic notions about him.
00:57But as I watched him, I felt something like a bolt of lightning.
01:01Two years later, in 1948, the actors tied the knot.
01:04They have three children, son Guy and daughters Nora and Hasna.
01:07When speaking on their union in their joint autobiography,
01:10In This Life Together with Ozzie and Ruby,
01:12they shared that they'd actually tried having an open marriage for a time.
01:15Dee said,
01:16But we both came to realize that we were very fortunate that,
01:19in all of the deep, profound and fundamental ways,
01:21we really, really only wanted each other.
01:24Davis added,
01:24Looking back, I'd say no matter what did or did not happen, we freed each other.
01:28And in doing that, we also freed ourselves.
01:31Sex is fine, but love is better.
01:33Speaking of love, in addition to their love of acting as an art form,
01:36the couple were both equally passionate about activism work.
01:39This despite being blacklisted at one time for their political leanings during the McCarthy era.
01:43In 2004, they received a joint Kennedy Center Honor for their film and theater contributions.
01:4850 years of being married and what have I learned from it all?
01:50Davis once said,
01:51I say to my fellow husbands, whose eyeballs may be covered with lust,
01:54that the way to possess all women is to love one woman well.
01:58Marriage is the place which love calls home.
02:00The couple were together for more than 50 years, up until Davis' passing in 2005.
02:05And that is black love.