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| Mildred and Richard Loving |
Tomorrow is Valentines
Day and HBO is airing The Loving Story. This
documentary film tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, and also
examines the current state of interracial marriage and its tolerance in the
United States.
When I first read about the Lovings several
years ago, I thought what a fitting (and ironic) name for them!
Richard Loving was white, and his wife,
Mildred, black. In 1958, since they couldn’t marry in their home state of
Virginia where interracial marriage was banned, they went to Washington, D.C. where they could legally wed. However, upon returning home as a married couple, they
were arrested, jailed and banished from the state for 25 years for violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act.
The Lovings agreed to leave Virginia and relocated to Washington. By doing this they avoided
jail time. But after living there for five years and
having three children, they missed family and friends and wanted to return home to Caroline
County, Virginia.
Around this time they contacted Bernard Cohen,
an attorney volunteering at the ACLU, to request that he ask the Caroline
County judge to reconsider his decision.
Cohen and another lawyer challenged the
Lovings' conviction, but the original judge in the case, Leon Bazile, upheld
his ruling claiming: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow,
Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. ... The fact that he
separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
The case moved all the way up to the Supreme
Court where Cohen made this argument:
"The Lovings have the right to go to sleep at night knowing
that if should they not wake in the morning, their children would have the
right to inherit from them. They have the right to be secure in knowing that,
if they go to sleep and do not wake in the morning, that one of them, a
survivor of them, has the right to Social Security benefits. All of these are denied to them, and they will not be denied to
them if the whole anti-miscegenistic scheme of Virginia... [is] found
unconstitutional."
After the ruling, in their favor (now known as the "Loving Decision")
they returned home to Caroline County.
A happy ending to now what seems an
unbelievable story—and believe it or not, they were arrested in the privacy of their bedroom during the middle of the night!
Had you ever heard of the Lovings' story?
Thanks for visiting, and Happy Valentine's Day!
