Charlayne Hunter-Gault - Personal Life

Personal Life

Alberta Charlayne Hunter was born in Due West, South Carolina, daughter of Charles S. H. Hunter, Col., U.S. Army, a regimental chaplain, and his wife, the former Althea Brown.

Shortly before she graduated from the University of Georgia, Hunter married a white classmate, Walter L. Stovall, the writer son of a chicken-feed manufacturer. The couple were first married in March 1963 and then remarried in Detroit, Michigan, on 8 June 1963, because they believed the first ceremony might be considered invalid as well as criminal, based on the laws of the unidentified state in which they had been married. Once the marriage was revealed, the governor of Georgia called it "a shame and a disgrace", while Georgia's attorney general made public statements about prosecuting the mixed-race couple under Georgia law. News reports quoted the parents of both bride and groom as being against the marriage, for reasons of race. Years later, after the couple's 1972 divorce, Hunter-Gault gave a speech at the university, in which she praised Stovall, who, she said, "unhesitatingly jumped into my boat with me. He gave up going to movies because he knew I couldn't get a seat in the segregated theaters. He gave up going to the Varsity because he knew they would not serve me.... We married, despite the uproar we knew it would cause, because we loved each other." Shortly after their marriage, Stovall was quoted as saying, "We are two young people who found ourselves in love and did what we feel is required of people when they are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together. We got married." The couple had one daughter, Susan Stovall, a singer (born December 1963).

In 1971 (? Above it says she divorced previous husband in 1972) Hunter married Ronald T. Gault, an African-American businessman who was then a program officer for the Ford Foundation; he is now an investment banker and consultant. They have one son, Chuma Gault, an actor (born 1972).