In overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas said:
“For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this
Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold,
Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process
decision is demonstrably erroneous. In future cases, we should
eliminate it from our jurisprudence at the earliest opportunity.”
The irony of Justice Thomas in Dobbs is that his own
marriage is based upon such rights.
In 1954 Texas, those children were branded Mongrels and District
Attorney C. Wallace Calloway, hoped to put a stop to such breeding.
Unlawful Love is a story of a family of people who appear at critical
junctures in the Constitution’s history, a family who helped frame the
Constitution, a family who became targets of those who try to bend
the law to preserve their view of America. This is a story of an
ambitious district attorney’s attempts to jail a member of that family,
for being a child of Unlawful Love.
This story is as current as it was in 1954. In order to assure that we fight for all of our
rights, it is important to hear the story of how different America could be without Constitutional protections.
In overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas said:
“For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this
Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold,
Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process
decision is demonstrably erroneous. In future cases, we should
eliminate it from our jurisprudence at the earliest opportunity.”
The irony of Justice Thomas in Dobbs is that his own
marriage is based upon such rights.
In 1954 Texas, those children were branded Mongrels and District
Attorney C. Wallace Calloway, hoped to put a stop to such breeding.
Unlawful Love is a story of a family of people who appear at critical
junctures in the Constitution’s history, a family who helped frame the
Constitution, a family who became targets of those who try to bend
the law to preserve their view of America. This is a story of an
ambitious district attorney’s attempts to jail a member of that family,
for being a child of Unlawful Love.
This story is as current as it was in 1954. In order to assure that we fight for all of our
rights, it is important to hear the story of how different America could be without Constitutional protections.
It is the first day of the winter semester at the University of Wisconsin law school. It is a cold January day in Madison, Wisconsin. The law school sits near the top of Bascom Hill, a constellation of traditional buildings built on the side of a steep hill. First year students have packed the largest lecture hall, as Constitutional Law is a required course that all must take in their second semester of their first year. Still anxious about first semester grades which are still unknown, still in awe of the professor – everyone is on time, laptops open, waiting for this class in the most American of subjects.
With the dramatic flair that so often is associated with the interactive learning of the law, the Professor enters through the side door, walks to the front of the podium, and pauses. He waits for the room to become completely silent. The Professor is a medium height man, with a full head of gray hair, dressed in a western jacket, boots and cowboy hat and the class imagines that years in the western sun account for the hard wrinkles on his leathery skin. The rumor that he has been teaching this same class since the 1960’s, seems in contradiction to that impression. What anyone doing the math should be able to figure is that he is in his 80’s, but his voice, his vigor in front of the class belies such conclusion.
He deliberately removes his hat, placing it on the podium, revealing that he is wearing his hair in a ponytail. Just as he is about to speak, the silence is broken by a vibrating cell phone.
“Did you want a selfie with the professor, first?” he asks with such a straight face that it takes the class a couple of seconds to realize the incongruity of the statement. The modern word “selfie” is in stark contrast to his Western drawl, with him drawing out most words, and finishing with a downward turn to his question.
The Professor grabs his hat, motioning for the phone to be dropped in it. With a look of horror on his face, the student moves forward to comply, but the professor waves him to a stop.
“Let me show you how to turn that durn thing off.” The word durn sounds very Western, but his voice returns to a more neutral scholarly tone with his next sentence. “Prejudgment replevin isn’t until the end of this semester.” The class is still so nervous they don’t quite know whether he is joking. Prejudgment replevin is a constitutional principle that requires some due process rights before creditors snatch property from debtors.
The Professor swipes the phone to off and then waits for the 150 students to follow his lead. There are many hands sweeping almost in unison, a couple of beats behind him. Certain that there will be no more interruptions he begins.
“This is the part where I am supposed to make you quake in your boots,” looking down at his ornate leather boots that look as if they might have been made 100 years ago and worn by a gunfighter. His tone is like something from an old movie. “Quake in your boots that I am about to call on you tenderfoots.” He looks around, pausing, he isn’t sure that this generation even knows the term. “Call on you, newbies, to embarrass you for being unprepared. There will be time for that. It is a long semester, and I am bound to get bored with hearing myself talk.”
The students warm up a little, laughing nervously. He waits for the snicker to die down; he clearly has a sense of timing in his lecturing.
“But I continue to delude myself that I can inspire future lawyers.” Now the drawl is all but gone. As he continues he has transformed to a far more vulnerable delivery. “The passion I carry for the Constitution and Bill of Rights cannot be understood by reading casebooks. Those principles are about human beings, real life drama, classic mythical themes, and stories. The Supreme Court rarely uses poetic and powerful words in enunciating their decisions. Legal cases, even great legal cases like Brown v. Board of Education, get written in the language of precedent and factual pronunciations. If you are to be great lawyers, somehow you will need to be inspired by the almost comic book magic and magnitude of the shield, the shield that is the United States Constitution.
“Never has that shield been more important. We were supposed to be living in a post racial America. How did that work out? How are we to maintain our democracy against the powerful forces of corporate greed and strong man rule, without the Constitution to protect us?
“We must see lawyers as the heroes of our time. It is my mission to ignite a passion for the good that our Constitution can do.” He pauses, having a sense of the power of silence, then continues: “Good that the United States Constitution can do, even in its darkest hours. The best way I know how to inspire is through the power of the story. But before I try to inspire, I want to set the stage by scaring the crap out of you. Boot quaking begin.”
He turns to the cell phone offender who has slunk back to his seat.
“When were African Americans given their freedom?”
Surprised at the ease of the question, the student quickly answers “1863.”
The Professor shakes his head although it is clear that he is delighted that he could so predictably trick his first victim of the semester.
“Anyone care to tell me why that answer is wrong?”
A young woman, short, chubby, with dark curly hair and glasses, raises her hand. The professor nods in her direction.
“You didn’t specify where. Freedom would be specific to where. For example, in Great Britain, since the 1700’s.”
“Miss… what is your name?”
“Taylor.”
“Miss Taylor. You do know that this is Constitutional Law, of the United States, of America? And you will note that I said African Americans, not blacks, or Africans.”
The class snickers, but mostly to themselves, no one wanting to be the next victim.
“Well, let me ask it a different way.” The class inhales, hoping to see the catch in the rephrased issue. “Who freed the slaves?”
Everyone is thinking Abraham Lincoln, but no one wants to volunteer such an obvious, and thus clearly wrong, answer. Finally, a tall athletic young man who probably played basketball as an undergrad, reasons out that this is a class in constitutional law and not a history lecture. He raises his hand, blocking out the faces of those behind him for three rows. The professor nods.
“The people of the United States freed the slaves, in 1865, by way of the 13th Amendment.”
“Mr.?”
“Roberts.”
“Mr. Roberts, you have demonstrated the most important skill in a lawyer, you have demonstrated the confidence to express your opinion – when you know you are right.”
Mr. Roberts smiles, a confidant smile, three-point shot swish kind of smile, until he realizes that the Professor is still looking at him.
“And the right to vote Mr. Roberts?”
“15th Amendment.” He doesn’t offer the year because he isn’t quite sure.
“And suffrage for women?”
The jock is clueless, but almost every woman’s hand goes up like they’re trying to block Mr. Roberts’ next three-point attempt. Perhaps that is the goal. One of the few women whose hands is not up is Miss Taylor. Of course, the Professor calls upon her.
“19th Amendment. 1920.” She breathes a sigh of relief, remembering the pneumonic device that she had used to memorize it a decade before, two 19’s and then a 20.
“And when did the Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court that is…” pausing to look at Miss Taylor “desegregate the schools?” The Professor then turns his gaze to another tall student in the front row who is just now lowering her hand from the previous question.
“Miss Jones.” She looks up startled, making sure he is looking straight into her dark eyes. She might have blushed, but it is hard to tell because her skin is dark as cocoa.
“Brown v. Board of Education. 1954.”
His gaze stays fixed on her. She is frantically collecting her thoughts, hoping she can handle the follow-up.
“When did it become constitutional for you and I to marry in Texas?”
A moment of panic is followed by a question rather than an answer, forgetting that the Socratic method only goes in one direction: “A mixed marriage you mean?”
“Yes, Miss Jones. At what point in the constitutional history of the United States, did the Supreme Court declare the crime of miscegenation, unconstitutional?”
“Was this in the readings? I didn’t think there was anything assigned for today.” She pauses, then adds: “I did check.”
“No, of course not. That would have spoiled all of my fun.” The Professor pauses, waits for the laughter, which does come, but it is a subdued laughter.
“Everywhere else in law school is devoted to Socratic learning, on the theory that we can teach you to think. We use confusing questions and obtuse writings from long dead judges to try to make you reason it all out. Like Mr. Roberts did. I also, from time to time, think that I can work this magic on your minds.
“And frankly, that beats the hell out of lectures as a teaching method. And, it cuts down on my prep time.”
This time when he pauses for the laughter, it is a hearty laughter, the students’ fear that they will be the next to be called on, temporarily receding.
“Yet for you as lawyers, what will be as important as your ability to think, will be your ability to tell a story.” Now the class can hear that his drawl has returned, but not an exaggerated drawl, but the voice of a veteran storyteller, spinning a yarn around a campfire.
“So, for the rest of this week, I will tell you a story, a saga from my long ago days in Texas. I will tell you a story of love, of racism, of an injustice perpetrated in our legal system until 1967. Of a Supreme Court that turned its back on a core right as precious as liberty itself. Of the crime of miscegenation.
“This is a story of a family of people who appear at critical junctures in our Constitution’s history,” long pause, as he does each time he repeats part of the phrase over. “A family of people who helped frame the Constitution, a family who helped preserve your rights, a family who became targets of those who try to bend our laws to preserve their view of America.
“I am not a member of that family of people, but I was a part of this story. The struggle you face as you weigh the role you can play in preserving the principles of our great democracy, is a struggle I had to play as an officer of the law. A struggle I faced,” another long pause “as I was tasked with enforcing unjust laws against this family of people.”
The class is now listening intently, ready for some ancient revelation about the purpose of the law. They are well set up for the next line.
“You will be relieved to know that I am not an undocumented immigrant.” The class this time laughs a hardy laugh, admitting to themselves that they wondered as much because of the Professor’s Spanish surname. “I was born an American citizen in 1932. My father and his father were also born in Texas.
"Our story begins with a woman who could have been my mother but for the ambitious man who stole the Cowboy Angel from the man who was my father. In 1929, my father was in love with the Cowboy Angel, the most beautiful woman in all of North Texas, the granddaughter of the owner of our hacienda. Cecilia Simmons, most knew her as Ceci, was the Cowboy Angel. My father lost Cecilia Simmons to a lawyer, not because of caste, but because of manners. While Ceci was very fond of my father Manuel, my father lacked the boldness and bullshit of C. Wallace Calloway, a Fort Worth lawyer.” The class snickers at the profanity coming from the Professor.
“What does a missed opportunity at forbidden love in 1929 have to do with the Constitution? First, Ceci was the granddaughter of one of those idealistic men who drafted the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Second, C. Wallace Calloway didn’t wind up with Ceci either. Twenty-five years later, Wallace, out of political ambitions and revenge towards Ceci, became an agent of the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace tried to jail Ceci’s daughter for committing the crime of miscegenation.
“Miscegenation – the most American of crimes – the longest surviving vestige of unapologetic racism under American law. If you wonder how big of a deal the Constitution’s protections can be, realize that in today’s world, the largest growing demographic is that of mixed race children. In 1954, those children were branded ‘Mongrels’ and C. Wallace Calloway hoped to put a stop to such breeding.”
Thus, the Professor’s story begins:
It is 1940. Ricardo Simmons, one of the most respected lawyers in Fort Worth has come to New Orleans to try to pressure his wayward daughter Cecilia to return to their family home in Fort Worth. His daughter, in continued rejection of the Spanish home in which she was raised, now only answers to the Anglicized Ceci. His real motive is to assure the proper environment and education for his precious granddaughter, Marisa, short for the more formal Maria Isabel.
Ceci had fled Fort Worth in shame nine years before with her infant daughter, thrown out by her husband who denied the paternity of Marisa. Ricardo has visited often and seen the lifestyle Ceci is leading in the notoriously decadent city. Ceci survives on money she makes as a jazz and blues piano player in French Quarter clubs. While Ricardo has been paying her rent in the more respectable Garden District, he has become increasingly concerned about her and Marisa’s welfare.
Ceci has fair skin, dark brown eyes, almost blonde hair, and is thin, too thin, thin in a way that one wonders whether she is merely undernourished or is substituting other substances for food. Despite her fragile appearance, Ceci is tall, with strong hips and womanly breasts, which are in contrast to her flat stomach and her thin angular face. While he has arrived on a humid mid-day in June, the curtains are drawn. Ceci has just gotten out of bed, dressed hurriedly in wrinkled jeans and a t-shirt, her hair uncombed. Marisa is in her room reading. New Orleans music is on the radio. Ricardo is a tall man, well above six foot, with dark, deeply tanned skin, a thin aristocratic nose, and dark, almost black eyes. As on most occasions, even when working at his law office, he is wearing tight Levis, cowboy boots, a prominent Western belt buckle, and an expensive Western shirt.
For Ricardo, seeing his daughter like this is sufficient basis to renew the argument he has with Ceci each time he visits. (His wife and Ceci’s mother, Annabelle, has stopped visiting, hating the constant bickering between them, overwhelmingly saddened by the tragedy that has split up her family.)
“I will never set foot in that god-awful cow town again,” says Ceci for the umpteenth time. “There is nothing for me there.”
“And Marisa?” Ricardo does have a Texas accent, but with this phrase his argumentative tone has been softened with the sadness of his question about his granddaughter. Having vowed not to remind her how much she leaves Marisa with sitters, or of all the late nights spent with her Bohemian friends, he doesn’t mention the absence of a father figure for his granddaughter.
“She is MY daughter. Not yours. And you know she would not be happy there.” Ceci’s accent is hard to pinpoint. There is a little bit of New England from her mother Annabelle, a little more Southern drawl, all blending into something quite unique. Her voice has a beautiful tone despite her sharp words.
“You were happy as a child. We gave you the best we could.” Ricardo is wistful, trying not to express the hurt from Ceci’s decade of rejection.
“You are not the problem. Fort Worth is the problem.” She gives him an exasperated look and then interjects: “Stop.” She waves her hands at him in desperation. He pauses, considering a new strategy. She breaks the silence.
“Did you want to see your precious granddaughter? Perhaps give her some of that proper male influence in her life?” The sarcasm is dripping from her words, but the offer is sincere. He surrenders. He reaches for her hand. “We love you baby. We really do.”
Ceci allows him to hold her hand just long enough that it is clear his touch is still something she cherishes. After a few seconds, she turns her head away, gets to her feet, and walks towards the Steinway upright piano at the far end of the living room. She stares at the keys, obviously troubled by the distance between her and her family.
“Play for me, Cecilia,” asks Ricardo, using her Spanish name as he tries to reach across the divide to the daughter he remembers taking piano lessons from his wife.
“You don’t like my music,” she says. “Haven’t since I stopped singing those cowboy songs.”
“That is a sorry version of the facts. Your music was what I got up for each morning.”
“Rachmaninoff.” Ceci smiles, remembering the battles with her mother, the piano teacher, over Cowboy music, wondering if she should show her father that she has not lost that talent.
“Ricardo,” pushing back the moment of intimacy by referring to her father by his first name, “the person who should accompany your breakfast is Marisa.”
“She plays?”
“Mother would be pleased.” Turning towards her daughter’s bedroom: “Marisa, we are done arguing now. Please come play for your grandfather.”
The door opens immediately. It is clear Marisa has been listening, that the songs on the radio were only a cover. She runs to her grandfather’s lap and gives him a huge hug and a kiss.
“Papa, do you want me to play for you?”
“Does the wind blow in Texas? Of course. Of course.”
Marisa walks over to the piano, opens the piano bench, and pulls out a formal book of piano music. She turns to what looks like a very difficult song for a nine-year old.
“Momma, will you help?”
Ceci says nothing, but sits down next to Marisa on the bench, and puts her left hand on the keys. Ceci begins to play a bass line. Marisa puts her right hand on the keys and begins to play. It starts as a simple harmony, Ceci establishing the rhythm, Marisa playing the melody. An easy song – notes, not chords. Marisa plays without hesitation, not watching her own fingers, not looking at the page but into Ricardo’s smiling eyes. She motions with her left hand to her grandfather to come closer. When he approaches, she hugs him with her left arm, nudging her mother to do likewise with her right. As Ceci relents and begins to show overt affection to her father, Marisa pulls her left hand free and nudges her mother’s fingers away and begins to play a complex bass chord progression, letting the music build before she attacks the melody with her right hand.
Both Ceci and Ricardo sit mesmerized as they hear and feel the protégé ascend. When it is over, Ceci is in tears; Ricardo wraps both of his girls in an enormous hug.
“I can’t go back home,” says Ceci through her sniffles. “There is nothing for me there. But you are right about Marisa. She must go, she must get to know her grandmother, her grandmother must mold this talent. If you and Mom will spend the summers with her on the ranch in Weatherford, I will let her go. But she is not to go to Fort Worth.”
What is unsaid is that Marisa is not to see her father or go anywhere near his people.
“But Mama. I like it here. I like piano lessons with you.”
“Try it for a summer. You need more formal training than I can give. You need to know about your family. And I can’t teach you Spanish. I never felt the need to learn.”
“Spanish?” Marisa scrunches her face into a scowl.
“Yes, your great grandmother Bonita Santiago’s tongue. Only grandma Bonita can teach you to speak it like a real Spaniard.” The irony of her words was lost on the child, but not on Ricardo.
Opening up with the professor and his eager law students, Gordon Selby Johnson’s Unlawful Love: When Marriage Was a Crime invites readers into a romantically and historically rich story: one that the professor declares as “a story of a family of people who appear at critical junctures in our Constitution’s history.” Though being in the professor’s classroom is informative and such a rib-cracking moment, the novel’s central themes are nestled far deep into the history of slavery and a courtroom debacle initiated by a vengeful jilted lover. Notably, Unlawful Love unfolds like a three-part story: one part centers on the professor and his students, another on Marisa and Bill, and the third follows Athena and her daughter, Bonnie, as they struggle to survive during slavery.
While it’s love at first sight for Bill and Marisa, a dark storm is gathering behind them, soon to hit home. In the meantime, Marisa is a great singer basking in the love of her grandfather, Ricardo, and Bill is an accomplished lawyer, having left the war and now practicing law with Ricardo.
While Marisa's relationship offers romance, Athena and Bonnie equip the readers with a lens through which to discern slavery, see the two women who endured it all, who used their bodies to outsmart the enemy, who tremendously impacted the lives of the next generation.
Several things make this book stand out, but first, let's look at how Gordon introduces characters. A good example is the professor and his students, surrounded by “the first day of the winter semester at the University of Wisconsin Law School.” Gordon writes, “With the dramatic flair that so often is associated with the interactive learning of the law, the Professor enters through the side door, walks to the front of the podium, and pauses.” As a reader, you get lured in faster than you’d think. Also, when introducing the world that nurtures the young Marisa, the reader first meets Ricardo and his estranged daughter, Ceci. Why is Ceci not interested in ever going back to Fort Worth? Equally intriguing, who’s Marisa’s father? Perhaps the only thing Ceci loves the most, aside from her daughter, is music. Additionally, the reader is sure to be thrilled by how John gets to know Bonnie: He receives a letter that begins, “Master John, if read this it means I dead….”
Unlawful Love is one I’d describe as dialogue-driven, which contributes to its compelling nature; I found it impossible to put down once I started reading. Through dialogue, the professor and his students make the reading interactive. The character’s ambitions, lusts, and ill intentions are revealed through dialogue. The dialogue impressed me. Even after I had finished reading this book, I can still vividly visualize Bill and Marisa joking about their predicaments (Laughing at the idea that they might go to prison because of their marriage), the lawyers battling in the courtroom, debating about the term “Negro” and so many captivating scenes, as well, all of which will remain with me.
Lastly, I recommend the book to readers who love courtroom drama, romance, and historical fiction. However, I advise young readers to stay away, as the book contains adult content.