54 years ago this weekend the united states supreme court struck down all legal barriers to interracial marriage we've come a long way since then but as rita braver reports there are some barriers that still remain corn green beans watermelon when friends introduced carlos brock to tonya bohannon in 1996 they both just knew oh man it was just something about her the vibe that she put off i was like that's what i want to marry he was really nice he was different than anybody that i had ever dated before he was just very genuine and kind when your parents realized that you were seriously interested in someone from a different race what was their response my mother wasn't she was cool with it but there are some still a day don't accept it but we don't care sorry i still get emotional it's been many years who gave you a hard time about it i don't want to say but um it was someone very close to me that basically um just disowned me the brooks married in 2000 with their daughter lexi in the wedding party it was just about being happy with each other but even today tanya who is a mail carrier i didn't buy barbecue sandwich and carlos who owns a food truck what do you want the barbecue in rio barbecue say there are still places in their hometown a rural tacoa georgia where they know they are not welcome and people even supposed friends who can make unsettling comments people always feel unnecessary to say that they're not um racist you know to us and that they don't teach their children to notice color or anything but in the same 30-minute conversation the man says but if my daughter came home saying that she was dating a black man i wouldn't approve of it just still so normal but some things have changed in the half century since the loving versus virginia case when the u.s supreme court declared that laws banning interracial marriage are unconstitutional feel so great i feel free now nowadays you can hardly open a magazine quite the pair just like us or turn on the tv without seeing interracial couples english please are you getting married according to the pew foundation at least 19 percent of new marriages in the u.s now involve spouses from different ethnic or racial groups up from 11 in 2000 and the general social survey found that only 1 in 10 americans would oppose a close relative marrying someone of a different race or ethnicity but that doesn't mean that tension has disappeared are interracial marriages more difficult they can be because they're more multi-layered there comes into play a lot more barriers than what a non-interracial couple will have to face with a phd in couple and family therapy racine henry frequently counsels interracial couples she says that no one should be surprised by what meghan markle recently told oprah winfrey about the royal family's reaction to the impending birth of markle and prince harry's son so we have in tandem the conversation of he won't be given security he's not going to be given a title and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born no matter how much status or money or privilege you might have racism is always going to find you henry says that message echoes the racism shown by many families across every social and economic level because we can't have a mixed-race child in our lineage yeah because it means too much to us that our bloodline is going to look very different than what it's supposed to look like and she says at this moment in history many interracial couples in the u.s are feeling increased anxiety with heated public debate on issues involving racial justice immigration even direct attacks on minority groups what do you say to the couple to try to defuse something like that well i first try to validate the partner who feels aggrieved and i think it's a powerful moment for the white partner to realize that their feelings are secondary their partner's experiences whether they agree with them or not needs to be taken as serious and as true as their own experiences are case in point i realized about myself that i do need to learn in order to be more supportive brian law and vidya rao say in the early days of their relationship he often didn't understand when she felt that someone had been disrespectful to her at least in part because of race i'd be all upset and huffing and slamming the door and pissed and and he's like wait what just happened it's been over the course of eight years of me you know being honest when these things happen pointing them out the best thing about him is that he was open to that and he did learn now living in l.a they met while working at a media company he was from a louisiana catholic family she was a hindu whose parents were born in india do you think as you were growing up your parents had expectations that you were going to marry someone else of indian descent it was sort of a given you know my parents had an arranged marriage and they literally met for the first time three hours before their wedding but vidya and brian's parents all accepted their decision to marry still she informed him that he needed to show appreciation for her mother's indian cooking one of the first times i did meet her family her mom made me dosa and dosa you eat with your hands and just dug straight in and did it i think that is part of my southern culture is that we eat with our hands he ended up going four rounds which my mom loved and that was the key to her heart tim long a pianist and conductor who grew up in oklahoma's muskogee creek nation and chris herbert a classical singer from connecticut fell in love over their love of music although we have completely different backgrounds there was something that connected us pretty immediately their families mostly approved with chris's aunt martha stewart throwing them a fabulous wedding party but along the way i had a family member who made a stereotypical derogatory action i don't even want to describe it because it adds power to it with this one specific one i was quite angry it led to a lot of conversations between the two of us it eventually opened up a great conversation with with the family and it brought us closer together now married for 11 years they're still adjusting to each other's ethnic traditions i was trained as a child when you meet somebody new you smile at them you ask them lots of questions about themselves that's largely a caucasian-american manner um that you smile when you don't necessarily mean it and i don't think many indigenous people decide to smile they smile when the emotion calls it up long and herbert have decided not to become parents all right you guys right there but for many interracial couples the issue of children brings its own set of joys and challenges especially worries about how their children will be treated which brings us back to the brock family and daughter lexi you know like kids in middle school are mean and so then it's like you're too i or you're too black or you're a mutt a mutt yeah how did you react when people said stuff like that to you it hurt you know at first and like why are we not good enough you know because my skin's tan that that's your justification of that you know but the number of multi-racial americans is steadily rising and so is the visibility of bi or multiracial role models first barack obama and now kamala harris when they called the race you know and they were all outside i mean that was monumental for me i saw little tiny girls crying like i cried too you know because that was the first time and the brocs and other interracial families nationwide understand that history is marching with them because in the end love really can conquer just about everything what's been the great part of your relationship for both of you we just have a good time [Laughter] the greatest thing for me about it is i would have to say the happiness