RP
2008-05-23 23:31:33 UTC
It amazing how many similarities we see between the fight against
interracial marriage and the fight against gay marriage.
Especially the focus on sexuality. Most aknowledged that whites and blacks
could be friendly......But the thought that white and blacks were having sex
was intolerable to many people...no matter how much they loved each other.
People opposed it even in the name of religion...and more specifically
Christianity.
And now....40 years later interracial marriage is no big deal to most
people....even religious people.
The woman who's case let to the end of the ban recently passed away.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/05/mildred_loving_matriarch_of_interracial_marriage_dies?mode=PF
Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies
By Dionne Walker, Associated Press Writer | May 5, 2008
RICHMOND, Va. --Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's
ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking
down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.
Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She
did not disclose the cause of death.
"I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble -- and
believed in love," Fortune told The Associated Press.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S.
Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws
banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because
of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal
protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and
in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never
wanted to be a hero -- just a bride.
"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."
Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting,
according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the
2004 book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers."
She became pregnant a few years later, she and Loving got married in
Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn't realize
it was illegal.
"I think my husband knew," Mildred said. "I think he thought (if) we were
married, they couldn't bother us."
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point,
their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded
guilty to charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and
dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.
They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia -- the only home they'd
known -- for 25 years. They moved to Washington for several years, then
launched a legal challenge by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy,
who referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Attorneys later said the case came at the perfect time -- just as lawmakers
passed the Civil Rights Act, and as across the South, blacks were defying
Jim Crow's hold.
"The law that threatened the Lovings with a year in jail was a vestige of a
hateful, discriminatory past that could not stand in the face of the
Lovings' quiet dignity," said Steven Shapiro, national legal director for
the ACLU.
"We loved each other and got married," she told The Washington Evening Star
in 1965, when the case was pending. "We are not marrying the state. The law
should allow a person to marry anyone he wants."
After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where they
lived with their children, Donald, Peggy and Sidney. Each June 12, the
anniversary of the ruling, Loving Day events around the country mark the
advances of mixed-race couples.
Richard Loving died in a car accident that also injured his wife. "They said
I had to leave the state once, and I left with my wife," he told the Star in
1965. "If necessary, I will leave Virginia again with my wife, but I am not
going to divorce her."
interracial marriage and the fight against gay marriage.
Especially the focus on sexuality. Most aknowledged that whites and blacks
could be friendly......But the thought that white and blacks were having sex
was intolerable to many people...no matter how much they loved each other.
People opposed it even in the name of religion...and more specifically
Christianity.
And now....40 years later interracial marriage is no big deal to most
people....even religious people.
The woman who's case let to the end of the ban recently passed away.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/05/mildred_loving_matriarch_of_interracial_marriage_dies?mode=PF
Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies
By Dionne Walker, Associated Press Writer | May 5, 2008
RICHMOND, Va. --Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's
ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking
down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.
Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She
did not disclose the cause of death.
"I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble -- and
believed in love," Fortune told The Associated Press.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S.
Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws
banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because
of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal
protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and
in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never
wanted to be a hero -- just a bride.
"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."
Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting,
according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the
2004 book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers."
She became pregnant a few years later, she and Loving got married in
Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn't realize
it was illegal.
"I think my husband knew," Mildred said. "I think he thought (if) we were
married, they couldn't bother us."
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point,
their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded
guilty to charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and
dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.
They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia -- the only home they'd
known -- for 25 years. They moved to Washington for several years, then
launched a legal challenge by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy,
who referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Attorneys later said the case came at the perfect time -- just as lawmakers
passed the Civil Rights Act, and as across the South, blacks were defying
Jim Crow's hold.
"The law that threatened the Lovings with a year in jail was a vestige of a
hateful, discriminatory past that could not stand in the face of the
Lovings' quiet dignity," said Steven Shapiro, national legal director for
the ACLU.
"We loved each other and got married," she told The Washington Evening Star
in 1965, when the case was pending. "We are not marrying the state. The law
should allow a person to marry anyone he wants."
After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where they
lived with their children, Donald, Peggy and Sidney. Each June 12, the
anniversary of the ruling, Loving Day events around the country mark the
advances of mixed-race couples.
Richard Loving died in a car accident that also injured his wife. "They said
I had to leave the state once, and I left with my wife," he told the Star in
1965. "If necessary, I will leave Virginia again with my wife, but I am not
going to divorce her."