Mildred Dolores Loving was one of those quiet American heroes who changed the course of US history.
by May-lee Chai
This recent Friday, 2 May, one of my personal heroes died. A few papers noted her passing, of pneumonia, at the age of 68. Cable news and the networks largely ignored my hero's death. She did not make the front page. It was not breaking news. What a shame, because Mildred Dolores Loving was one of those quiet American heroes who changed the course of US history and she should not be forgotten.
When she was 18, Mildred Jeter married her childhood sweetheart, Richard Loving. This fact would normally no more raise an eyebrow than any other small-town love story. The couple married in Washington, D.C. then returned home to Virginia to be near their families. Big deal, right? Except it was 1958, Richard was white, and Mildred was "colored", in the parlance of the time—a mixed-race person of African-American, Cherokee, and Rappahannock descent.
The consequences of this love story would not soon be forgotten.
The Lovings were arrested in the wee hours of 11 July 1958, just weeks after their marriage. They were dragged from their bed by the sheriff and his deputies and charged with violating Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws. Richard spent a night jail, Mildred, several. This discrepancy in their jail terms was not explained.
In a plea bargain, the Lovings pled guilty to violating Virginia's so-called 'Racial Integrity Act', and their one-year prison sentence was suspended under the condition that they leave the state and never set foot in it again as a couple; otherwise they would be arrested and imprisoned for 25 years each.
Presiding Judge Leon M. Bazile explained in his opinion, "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."
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