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Home · Black History Month

<p>What Black Love Looked Like From the 1800s to the Present</p>

Let's celebrate the history of Black love.

By Charli Penn · Updated October 26, 2020
01
Circa 1970
Unidentified couple circa 1970s.
getty images
02
Circa 1899
Elderly African American couple posed outside of building, near Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va.
getty images
03
1905
Unidentified couple circa 1905.
getty images
04
1912
Unidentified couple circa 1912.
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05
1915
Unidentified couple circa 1915.
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06
1915
Unidentified couple circa 1915.
getty images
07
1920
Unidentified couple circa 1920.
getty images
08
1923
Captioned ‘Beaulah and Lloyd McIlvain’ on April 20, 1923.
getty images
09
1925
Unidentified couple circa 1925.
getty images
10
1930
1930
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11
1930
Unidentified couple circa 1930.
getty images
12
1932
Unidentified couple in Ohio circa 1932.
getty images
13
1936
Nigerian musician and composer Fela Sowande (1905 – 1987) with his fiance, American soprano Mildred Marshall, in Regent’s Park, London, 13th September 1936. Sowande is working as a the pianist and Marshall is singing in the London production of Lew Leslie’s musical revue, ‘Blackbirds Of 1936’.
getty images
14
1942
June 1942: An African-American couple dances, as other people clap, inside the recreation tent of the Farm security administration agricultural workers’ camp, Bridgeton, New Jersey.
getty images
15
1945
Frederick C. Branch (1922 – 2005), the first African American to be commissioned in the United States Marine Corps, gets his second Lieutenant bars pinned on him by his wife Camilla ‘Peggy’ Branch, November 1945. being pinned with his second lieutenant bars by his wife, Camilla ‘Peggy’ Branch.
getty images
16
Circa 1950
A student, wearing a sweater from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), relaxes on the grounds with a lady friend, Hampton, VA, early twentieth century.
getty images
17
Circa 1960
Unidentified couple circa 1960.
getty images
18
Circa 1960
Unidentified couple circa 1960.
getty images
19
Circa 1965
Unidentified couple circa 1965.
getty images
20
Circa 1968
March 1968: Mr and Mrs Gabriel Samuel, two Nigerian students living in London, on the day of their wedding.
getty images
21
Circa 1970
Unidentified couple circa 1970s.
getty images
22
1970
Unidentified couple circa 1970.
getty images
23
1973
Unidentified couple in a Chicago neighborhood circa 1973.
getty images
24
1973
Unidentified couple in a Chicago neighborhood circa 1973.
getty images
25
1978
Unidentified couple circa 1978.
getty images
26
Circa 1980s
Unidentified couple in a New York circa 1980.
getty images
27
1988
Unidentified couple seated atop a carved tree stump in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, New York, New York circa 1988.
getty images
28
Circa 1987
Unidentified couple on a pier in Chicago, Illinois circa 1987.
getty images

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