Loving Day
Photo Credit: Timothy Metcalf Photography
Mildred and Richard fell in love. Richard proposed, Mildred accept. and they lived happily ever after, right? Well, not without a fight not with each other but for each other.
You see Richard was a white man and Mildred was a woman of African and Native American ancestry. The year they married was 1958 during a time of Miscegenation laws in many states around the country. Miscegnation Laws, among other banned Inter-racial marriages people of color from marrying white people.
The laws were cruel in nature and designed to keep a “pure” race. June 12, 1967, the Supreme court ruled interracial marriage legal.
Happy Loving Day! Loving Day commemorates the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Loving vs. Virginia, the landmark case that banned interracial marriage laws in Virginia and 15 other states.
In July 1958, the Lovings, who were married in DC, were arrested by the local sheriff, in their home in the middle of the night. Mildred Loving (African-American and Native American) and her husband Richard (white), were charged with cohabitation and presented with a choice by the judge either to go to prison or leave Virginia and their families, not to return for 25 years.
The Lovings moved to Washington, but Mildred was homesick for her family so she wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union. They took her case and challenged the constitutionality of Virginia’s Anti-Miscegenation law.
Unfortunately, Richard died in a car accident in 1975 leaving Mildred a young widow until her death in 2008. Ken Tanabe, a graduate student learned about the Loving’s story and chose it as the subject of his thesis 30 years later.
Loving Day turned into a holiday people recognize in cities like Virginia, New York, and Vermont as well as in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan
I’m grateful to Mildred, an unlikely hero, who just wanted to go home to see her family again. Without the Lovings, my family would not legally exist.
Robrenna Redl is a real, raw, no-filters, kind of girl. She went from an army brat to a military veteran. A wife to Troy and mom of two young adults, she has served in women’s, children’s, and middle school ministries. Robrenna is the friend you call to walk alongside you in hard, painful places of life as well as the joyful ones. She is a volunteer for the anti-sex-trafficking organization I’ve Got A Name and an apprentice facilitator for the Trauma Healing Institute. Her passions include mocha coffee, dark chocolate, time with family and friends, and showing God’s love, mercy, and grace to others.
When one knows what it’s like to be enslaved, there’s no such thing as taking freedom for granted.