June 2, 1958: True "Loving"

Richard and Mildred Loving

On June 2, 1958 (56 years ago today), Richard Loving got married to Mildred Jeter...but, this was not a "normal" wedding. Their wedding was a crime in Virginia and 24 other states...

Their crime...Richard, a White man, and Mildred, an African-American and Native American woman, had violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 (a felony charge), which prohibited interracial marriages. By their own account, they were in bed around 2 a.m. on the morning July 11, 1958 when the county sheriff and 2 deputies broke down their door...

“Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?”

Mildred answered, “I’m his wife.”

Richard (a man of very few words) pointed to the marriage certificate hanging on the bedroom wall.

The sheriff responded, “That’s no good here.”

Virginia Code, Title 20, Sections 53 and 59:

“If any white person and colored person shall go out of this state for the purpose of being married and with the intention of returning … they shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years.”

Judge Leon Bazile sentenced them to 1 year in the state penitentiary or to be banished from the state of Virginia for 25 years...in January of 1959, they moved to Washington, D.C. to avoid their jail sentence.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his [arrangement] there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix...Conviction of a felony is a serious matter. You lose your political rights; and only the government has the power to restore it...and as long as you live you will be known as a felon...The moving finger writes and moves on and having writ...Nor all your piety nor all your wit can change one line of it."

The Loving Family

In 1964, unable to travel back to Virginia together to visit their families and frustrated by big city life...they appealed for help from the ACLU to fight their Virginia convictions. Fiercely private, the Lovings didn't even travel to Washington to hear the oral arguments. Their ACLU lawyer Bernard Cohen, asked Richard if he had anything to say to the justices, he replied: 

"Tell the court I love my wife, and it's just unfair that I can't live with her in Virginia."

On June 12, 1967 (9 years after their wedding), the Supreme Court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation "law" violated both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment.

Watch an NBC News Clip about the Lovings...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLngXMpv8Z4 (2:31)

Although most Americans say they are okay with black-white marriages...these marriages are rare. In 2009, only 550,000 married couples in the United States (less than 1 percent) consisted of a White and African-American spouse.

Couples celebrating "Loving Day" on June 12th