It’s been 40 years since Mildred Loving became infamous and I say infamous because despite her actions and her heart, she wasn’t painted with the same brush as Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks, as you may know, was the black woman who took a seat on a bus and launched a Civil Rights movement. Mildred Loving is a black woman who fell in love and married a white man in segregated Virginia 40 years ago.
History in Love
In a rare interview with the Associated Press, Mildred Loving stated that she doesn’t consider herself the hero that many other mixed race couples do because she blazed a path for their love to be accepted in a society that shunned interracial marriage. Mrs. Loving and her husband were once arrested and prosecuted under the laws that declared interracial marriage illegal.
Richard and Mildred Loving met when Richard was 18 and Mildred was 11. In their part of the Jim Crow south, white and black lived side by side, worked side by side and survived side by side. Cemetaries throughout the area are not limited to only black or white, but a mixture of both. When Mildred was 18, she became pregnant. It was 1958 and the stigma of a unwed mother was far more powerful to Richard Loving than the stigma of marrying a black woman, especially a black woman that he loved. They drove to Washington D.C. and got married.
A month later, they were in jail.
Not only were they arrested, but law enforcement broke into their home at 2 a.m. to roust them from their bed and put them in jail. Apparently some anonymous complaints reached the attorney general’s office. He informed local law enforcement to investigate it. They claimed the investigation had more to do with illegal cohabitation than about race, but since the officers were told to arrest them if they were ‘married’ – then it couldn’t have been totally about illegal cohabitation. Though interracial marriage was illegal in the state of Virginia.
The Lovings were covicted on charges of:
cohabitating as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.
Following their conviction, they agreed to a mandate that sent them to leave Caroline County and the state of Virginia immediately. They were not allowed to return together or at the same time to the county or the state for 25 years.
In other words, they were exiled from their home.
A motion to vacate the sentence was filed in 1959, but the courts refused to hear the case. The courts hid behind the state-sanctioned bias and racism laws. As the Jim Crow laws began to be repealed and segregation being forcibly ended by the Federal government, the Lovings case was heard by the Supreme Court on June 12, 1967.
Their lawyer argued
… when a law is based on race, it is immediately suspect and the burden is shifted to the state to show there is a compelling interest to have that sort of racial differentiation.
Richard and Mildred Loving had three children and enjoyed as much of a happily ever after as they could until one night in 1975 when a drunk driver struck their vehicle and killed Richard instantly. Mr. Loving is now buried just a few minutes from the home he shared with Mildred.
On June 12, there will be events marking ‘Loving Day’ and the entire county celebrates it. For Mildred, she doesn’t think about June 12th so much or the court ruling, instead she thinks of her husband – someone she still loves fiercely all these years later. She enjoys the home they fought for, the children they created together and her memories of their time together. If Mildred Loving could have just one thing, it would be to have her husband there to enjoy it with her.
He used to take care of me. He was my support. He was my rock.
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