A Profound Love

I Love Ancestry

Mildred Loving
July 22, 1939 - May 2, 2008

Honoring Mildred Loving who crossed over on this day 6 years ago. (July 22, 1939 – May 2, 2008). Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision.

Photo: Mildred Loving holds an early portrait of her husband, Richard Loving, in this photograph taken in 1979. Richard Loving died in an automobile accident in 1975 that left Mildred Loving blind in one eye. Behind Loving stand her three children (from left to right), Sidney, Donald, and Peggy, who holds her son, Mark. Richard and Mildred Loving were the appellants in the U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia (1967), which struck down a Virginia law forbidding interracial marriage. REALTY CHECK! Alabama was the last holdout, finally repealing its anti-miscegenation law in 2000.

Born Mildred Delores Jeter, she was an amazing American woman of Rappahannock (mother), Cherokee (father) and African heritage who married Richard Perry Loving and were both criminally charged under a Virginia statute banning interracial marriages.

With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Lovings filed suit seeking to overturn the law. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, striking down the Virginia statute and all state anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional violations of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Loving met her husband a white man when she was 11 and he was 17. He was a family friend and years later they began dating. They lived in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where interracial marriage was banned by a 1924 statute.

When she was 18 she became pregnant, and the couple decided to marry, traveling out of Virginia to do so. She later stated that she did not know it was illegal when they married in 1958, but she believed her husband did.

They returned to Virginia and were arrested in the middle of the night by the county sheriff, who had received an anonymous tip. The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia after being banned from living together in their home state.

The case, Loving v. Virginia, was decided unanimously in the Lovings' favor on June 12, 1967. The Court overturned their convictions, dismissing Virginia's argument that the law was not discriminatory because it applied equally to and provided identical penalties for both white and black persons. The Supreme Court ruled that the anti-miscegenation statute violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. This precedent-setting decision resulted in 16 states being ordered to overturn their bans on interracial marriage.

On June 12, 2007, Mildred Loving issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision. Her statement concluded:

“My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God's plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation's fears and prejudices have given way, and today's young people realize that if someone loves someone, they have a right to marry. Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the 'wrong kind of person' for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others; especially if it denies people’s civil rights. I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

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Photo by Don Rypka, February 11, 1979
Courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch