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When Mary Jacobs married a black man, her parents and society ostracized her. More than 70 years later, their love is still alive and thriving.
70 years ago, she was kicked out for loving a black man; today they are still together
Mary was born in Britain and Jake was born in Trinidad. When they fell in love in 1940s England, when being an interracial couple was far less socially accepted than it is today.
They were ostracized socially, and even by their family, but they stayed together: they were fighting a war, of life and love, but also a real war.
Jake was serving in the United Kingdom during World War II. This is how their love conquered all.
A fateful first meeting
Mary told the Daily Mail that she met Jake when he arrived during the war from Trinidad as part of U.S.
forces stationed at the Burtonwood base near her home in Lancashire.
“We were at the same technical school. He was getting typing and shorthand lessons and the Air Force had sent him there for training. He was with a group of black friends and they called my friend and me to talk.”
“We didn’t even know they spoke English, but Jake and I got to chatting.
He quoted Shakespeare to me, which I loved.”
A few weeks later, the couple went for a picnic with friends, but a lady spotted them on a bicycle. “Two English girls with a group of black men was very shocking, and she reported me to my father, who forbade me to see him again,” she continued.
But as fate would have it, they met again
So that was it for the time being. Once the war ended, Jake had to leave Mary behind and return to Trinidad. But the two sent each other love letters during their time apart and eventually Jake realized that he needed to be with Mary.
He returned to the UK a few years later and asked her to be his wife.
What was it like to be in a mixed race relationship in the 1940s and 50s? We meet Jake and Mary Jacobs who got married in 1948 pic.twitter.com/E56ZP6QLbs
— BBC Radio 2 (@BBCRadio2) October 13, 2016
“He asked me to marry him, out of the blue, when I was only 19,” Mary recalled. “When I told my father I was going to marry Jake, he said, ‘If you marry that man, you’ll never set foot in this house again.’ He was horrified that I could contemplate marrying a black man,” she revealed.
“My father threw me out and I left with only a small suitcase to my name. No family attended our wedding at the registry office in 1948.”
“The first few years of our marriage living in Birmingham were hell; I cried every day and barely ate,” he continued. “No one would talk to us, we couldn’t find a place to live because no one would rent to a black man and we had no money.”
With no family to lean on, the couple slowly began to make friends. It wasn’t always easy, however, as they faced a lot of discrimination and prejudice from those who couldn’t accept a white woman and a black man being together.
“I used to tell new friends, ‘Look, I have to tell you this before I invite you over to my house, my husband is black.”
They celebrated 70 years of marriage
A few years ago, Mary and Jake celebrated their 70th anniversary. “I feel very fortunate to have met and married Mary, but it saddens me that we can’t be accepted by society.
I tell young black men today, ‘You have no idea what it was like before.’ When I first came to the UK, I was subjected to abuse every day.
One time I was on a bus and a man rubbed his hands on my neck and said, “I wanted to see if the dirt would come off. And back then you couldn’t work in an office, because a black man in an office didn’t think all white girls were safe,” Jake said.
Jake and Mary are now entering 71 years of marriage and are still very much in love. Unfortunately, Mary has a mild form of Alzheimer’s looming, so they are making the most of the time they have while they have her. But they have had an amazing life together, and made her happy, despite all the barriers that existed in their past.
