Mildred Loving (1939-2008) and her husband’s determination to be together created lasting change for all interracial couples in America. Once again proving love conquers all.
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From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Our activist today never sought the spotlight or to lead a revolutionary life. Yet her and her husband’s determination to be together created lasting change for all interracial couples in America. Once again proving love conquers all.
Let’s talk about Mildred Loving.
Mildred Doelores Jeter was born on July 22, 1939 in Central Point, Virginia. Her family was of African American, European and Native American descent. Unlike most southern cities in the height of Jim Crow, Central Point was integrated. Black and white people mixed freely with relatively little racial tension. It was here that a teenage Mildred met, and fell in love, with a young white man named Richard Loving.
Mildred and Richard began quietly dating. When Mildred became pregnant at 18, the couple decided to get married.
But in 1958 interracial marriage was illegal in the state of Virginia. Barred from marrying in their home state, Mildred and Richard drove to Washington D.C. to tie the knot.
The young couple had only been married a few short weeks when in the early hours of one July morning, Sheriff Garnett Brooks and two deputies stormed into the couple’s bedroom in Central Point.
Acting on an anonymous tip that the couple was living in violation of Virginia law, the police demanded to know Mildred’s relationship to Richard. She said plainly, “I’m his wife” and gestured at their marriage certificate on the wall.
This did little to persuade the police. Even though they had not married within state lines, the Virginia law still forbade Black and white citizens from marrying outside of Virginia and then returning to live in the state.
As a result, both Richard and a pregnant Mildred spent nights in jail. They eventually pleaded guilty to violating Virginia law. Mildred and Richard’s plea bargain spared them from a one-year prison sentence, but ordered them to leave the state and not return together for 25 years.
The Lovings followed orders. After settling their court fees, they moved to Washington D.C. where they raised three children, occasionally making independent trips into Virginia to visit family. At great risk of imprisonment, Mildred and Richard made clandestine trips into Virginia together and secretly lived there for a short period of time.
But by 1963, the couple had had enough. Mildred, who was already unhappy with city life, decided she was done for good after her son was hit by a car. On the advice of her cousin, Mildred wrote to then Attorney General Robert Kennedy to ask for his assistance. Kennedy wrote back and referred Mildred and her husband to the American Civil Liberties Union, or the ACLU. The ACLU took their case.
Four years later, on April 10, 1967, following legal challenge after legal challenge, the case of Loving v. Virginia made its way to the Supreme Court.
The commonwealth of Virginia, claimed its ban on interracial marriage existed to prevent potential “ills” and was not in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Lovings’ lawyers challenged that claim head on. They argued that Virginia’s law ran counter to the Equal Protections Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it forbade interracial couples to marry based solely on their race.
On June 12, 1967 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the Lovings, identifying the Virginia law -- and all laws forbidding interracial unions -- as unconstitutional under both the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Chief Justice, Earl Warren, wrote the opinion for the court, stating that to deny someone the basic civil right of marriage on the basis of race is, “directly subversive to the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Having successfully changed the law all across America, Mildred and Richard returned home to Virginia.
Eight years later, Richard tragically died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. Mildred, who was also in the car, lost her sight in her right eye.
Having never sought the spotlight to begin with, Mildred tried to return to a sense of normalcy after years of high profile court hearings.
In a rare interview appearance in 1992, Mildred reflected:
“What happened, we really didn’t intend for it to happen. What we wanted, we wanted to come home.”
Mildred passed away on May 2, 2008. She was 68 years old.
An unofficial holiday on June 12th commemorates the role Mildred and Richard’s love played in the ultimate abolition of these racist laws. It’s called Loving Day.
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