WATCH | Black Love in Two Minutes: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee - video Dailymotion

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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.

WATCH | Black Love in Two Minutes: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

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