College of the ozarks interracial dating

Much of Monday, I heard the following chant during the annual Martin Luther King Jr. march.

Leader: Show me what community looks like!

Response: This is what community looks like!

I saw what community looks like, and it was uplifting.

Then there was even more: I saw what love looks like. 

I met Billy and Dora Cooper, an interracial couple who were recognized Monday for surviving racism.

They rose above all the sewage tossed at them — from being shot at in Osceola to being lied to that their pre-marriage blood tests showed they both had syphilis.

It just made them stronger and more madly in love.

They met as teenagers at Central High School. 

They were 16: Henry Cooper is black and Dora Dickerson is white.

"She was the first white person I sat down next to who did not see color," he tells me. "I just knew that she was special."

But this was the 1960s.

School administrators asked them not to walk together near Central.

"We could not be seen within sight of the school," he says. 

Around this time, they went to see a movie at a theater on the square and were spotted — as a interracial couple — by the manager.

The theater was operated by the same company that operated the Gillioz, where Billy worked.

Billy was told he could not date a white girl and keep his job. For him, it was an easy decision; he lost his job.

Yes, Dora tells me, she remembers when and where Billy asked her to marry him. She has the dates.

They met on July 2, 1966, and he asked her 3½ months later. 

"We were parked," she tells me.

"But we weren't doing anything," she adds, so I don't get the wrong idea.

They did not marry then because they were too young. They did not have jobs and could not live on their own. 

Both sets of parents were against the idea.

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His father saw a black man lynched

Billy's father feared that if Billy married a white girl, he would be killed.

"He told me that these people would kill me," he says. "My dad had actually seen a black man lynched in the South. He had a tremendous fear of white people.

"Her parents knew how people talked and they knew how people felt," he says.

Billy and Dora waited until they graduated from Central in 1968 and then had full-time jobs.

Dora planned the wedding. She had a cake. They were 19.

They took the blood test that was required by the county health department back then.

The test was for syphilis; it ended in 1980. If either person tested positive, the county would not grant a marriage license until the infection was treated. Syphilis could harm the fetus.

"We were told we both failed the test," Dora says.

This confused her.

"I told them I was a virgin," she says.

So was Billy.

They returned to the health department for an explanation.

"They asked us what we had for lunch before we took the blood test," Billy says. "We said it was Campbell's vegetable soup. They told us that must have been why we had false positives."

They knew the real reason.

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They were married in their little apartment on May 10, 1969.

"My father finally told Dora that he always liked her," Billy says.

Soon after, Billy was in a vehicle accident. His car and a city bus collided. The car was totaled.

Billy was certain he had seen his father-in-law drive by the accident without stopping.

"I was extremely close to my dad, and this was the one time I was angry with him," Dora says. "He told me he didn't see that it was Billy."

Dora doubted that.

"I told him I could very easily have been in that car and you just drove by."

After that, they both say, her father treated Billy as a true son-in-law.

'I love him with all my heart'

I ask how they've managed to stay married 51 years. It's not easy, even without the obstacles they faced.

"For me, it was knowing that the person loves you no matter what," Billy says. "As time goes by, you experience things and you know this person has your back.

"I would never have gone to college," he says. "She told me I could do better when I had no — zero — confidence in myself. She has always had faith in me. She has always encouraged me."

It's love, says Dora.

"I really love Billy. I love him with all my heart."

They also have common interests: sports and travel.

They have been to all 50 states, to various islands and to Europe.

"She's a bigger sports fan than I am," he says. "When we were watching the Chiefs on Sunday, I had to go into the other room."

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They have a son, Joshua, 45, a postal worker in Kansas City.

He was present to see his parents honored. They have also raised Dora's brother's daughter, who has significant developmental problems. 

Her brother lost his wife when the girl was 4 and did not think he could raise her alone. Her brother has since died.

Dora carries no anger for the racism they experienced. They are both 70 years old now.

"That is so far behind me," she says.

Instead, it made them stronger and more in love, he says.

"Both of us are stubborn. You are fighting the world. Or at least you feel like you are fighting the world. 

"But I always knew that when I got home to Dora I was safe."

These are the views of News-Leader columnist Steve Pokin, who has been at the paper seven years, and over his career has covered everything from courts and cops to features and fitness. He can be reached at 836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail at 651 N. Boonville, Springfield, MO 65806.