John Ray Sanford (1946- ) was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, to Charles S. Sanford (1906-1991) and Edith Shedd Sanford (1907-1999). He graduated from Indiana University and Purdue University. Afterward he served as a second lieutenant in the United States Army and was temporarily stationed at Fort Benning Army Base (later Fort Moore) in Columbus, Georgia. Betty Jo Byrom (1936- ) was born in Mountain View, Georgia, to Reverend Joe Henry Byrom (1908-1994) and Sallie May Lester (1914-1996). She graduated from Morris Brown College and Indiana University. In 1970, she lived in Detroit, Michigan, where she worked as the director of Guidance and Education Services at the Detroit Urban League.

In 1971, Sanford and Byrom applied for a marriage license in Jonsesboro, Georgia, which was initially denied. In response, the United States Supreme Court filed a suit against Georgia to implement the 1967 federal legalization of interracial marriage determined by the case Loving v. Virginia. Consequently, Sanford and Byrom married later that year at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia, the first legally married interracial couple in the state. In 1984, they moved to Lansing, Michigan.