Freedom in the Making: Mildred Loving

When most think of civil rights leaders, they think of certain very public figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr. Icons like him are known around the world for promoting all races sharing in equal rights through peace. However, there is another who became a symbol of the right to marry regardless of one's race or background, Mildred Loving. Remembered for her soft spoken mannerism, she along with her husband, unwittingly became the center of a battle to change the tides of the laws and attitudes on interracial marriage in America. She and her husband would become the reason that African Americans are allowed to have their own choices in marriage partners in the present. If not for the obstacles, discrimination, and adversity that Mr. and Mrs. Loving endured, we as human beings would not have the civil choice to love as our hearts allowed. Children that were the result of truly bonded relationships wouldn't have the option of being born into wedlock, and the government would continue to deny the rights that are supposedly guaranteed under the fourteenth amendment. Their courage and strength would overturn the decisions made in Pace_v._Alabama, a case in which the Alabama Supreme Court ruled against the interracial couple who were cohabitating using the falsity that it would make a race of " degraded... mongrel... population." Another such case was Kirby vs. Kirby, in which the state of Arizona granted a white an annulment based on the court's inspection of his wife's physical characteristics to deem her of mixed race, making it an illegal marriage because sex or marriage between people of white and black races was illegal. The last utterly ignorant ruling by the Superior Court of San Diego County in the Monks case, that Mr. Monks wife was "one eight negro blood" due to the so-called expertise of a surgeon despite the testimony of a biologist and an anthropologist that a person's race can not be determined from physical examination. Finally, in Perez vs. Sharp, the California Supreme Court became the first in the United States to admit that laws restricting the right of marriage violated the fourteenth amendment in 1948. This landmark case set the stage for Loving vs. Alabama, making those of us in the present day able to use our liberties in marriage.

The Commonwealth of Virginia charged the Lovings with violation of the Racial_Integrity_Act, in which marriage between Whites and African Americans only was banned even if they married in another state and returned to Virginia. They plead guilty and served a year jail sentence in 1959 then went on to file their case in the District of Columbia in 1963. The Supreme Court overturned their convictions and ruled that to deny marriage based on race was not only a violation of civil rights, but racist, and an effort to perpetuate white supremacy. Alabama still ignored this ruling and didn't lift their band on interracial marriage until 2000. This speaks volumes on the presence of racism in not only that state, but the country. No one except for those bold enough to ignore society's hate and follow our hearts knows the true extent of the widespread problem of racism. On the 40th anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia in 2007, Mildred Loving issued a statement which included this, "Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights.I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about."

If not for the determination of the Lovings and the support of the Presbyterian Church and the Roman Catholic Church, the government may never have recognized interracial marriages. Mr. Richard Loving died in 1975 from injuries sustained in a car accident. Mrs. Mildred Loving passed away May 2, 2008 of pneumonia in Virginia. The conclusion of this wonderful woman's obituary echoes what her marriage and all marriages and love should be about and that the government or no other entity has the right to put restrictions on a God given sacrament no matter what the public opinion may be. The Loving family's lives and struggles will not be forgotten by those of us who have our civil rights to marry as we so choose today or in the future.