Note:
It’s Woodstock Pride Fest today where the LGBTQ
community, family members, supporters, and the curious celebrate in McHenry
County which not so many years ago was so conservative and hostile that few
dared to publicly come out. Much
progress has been made over the last decades including the final victory for
Marriage Equality in Illinois a few years ago.
But there are storm clouds on the horizon. Transgender and genderfluid youth who came
out boldly at the first Pride Fest in 2019 find themselves increasingly
targeted by proposed legislation demanding school restrooms be open only to
those with the reproductive organs and/or identity assigned at birth and
preventing athletes from competing with cis-gender teams. It stands little chance at passage in
Illinois, but such laws—and much worse—are sailing through Red State Legislatures. Meanwhile the prospective Supreme Court decision
overturning Roe v. Wade and sending abortion regulation back to the states, has
also opened the door to a raft of new anti LGBTQ laws. And that could even include Marriage Equality
which was supported by the Court using the president set by Loving v. Virginia back
in 1967 which struck down state anti-miscegenation laws. If you think that is a bridge
to far for the Christian nationalist right wing, you have not been paying
attention to how bold and empowered they feel these days. So today we look back at the couple at the
center of that landmark case.
It could not be more appropriate. Today is Loving Day, the commemoration of a Supreme
Court decision that is often forgotten
but which profoundly changed America. Some folks would even like to make it a national holiday.
Mildred
Jeter and Richard Loving grew up together in Caroline County, Virginia, near neighbors and friends
since he was 17 and she was 11. As she
grew up friendship blossomed into romance. As is wont to happen when Mildred was 18, she
became pregnant. Richard had no doubts. He asked
his girlfriend to marry him. They eloped to Washington, D.C. in 1958 then returned
home to Central Point, Virginia just
north of Richmond set up housekeeping as man and wife. A story not unlike
thousands of others.
Their happiness was short lived. Within weeks they were awakened to find police in their bedroom. The couple was arrested and hauled to jail charged with a felony, “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity
of the Commonwealth.” Richard, you see,
was white and Mildred African American. They had violated
Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law. At the time 16 states from Delaware to Texas including those of the old Confederacy and most border
states made marriage between the
races illegal.
The young couple was understandably frightened. They had known
that it was illegal to get married in Virginia, which is why they had
gone to Washington. They did not know
that it was a crime to
return and live as husband and wife.
To avoid a prison term of one to three years each, the Lovings agreed to leave Virginia, forbidden to return for 25 years tearing them away from their respective
families. They moved to Washington.
Although their relationship was legal in Washington, the nation’s capital was still culturally a Southern city. The couple
found it difficult to secure housing in the essentially segregated city. They had to
endure street harassment from both
races when they went out together.
Richard had trouble finding work and was sometimes fired when it was learned that he had a
Black wife. Even their children were harassed. Both missed
their families. But the couple’s love kept them together.
The passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemed to offer new hope. Mildred decided
to write a letter to the new Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy
asking for help. The Justice Department decided not to intervene directly, but Kennedy was sympathetic enough to forward
Mildred’s letter to the American Civil
Liberties Union in New York.
The ACLU was very interested
in the case and decided to support the Loving’s appeal of their original conviction. Two lawyers, Bernard S. Cohen and Philip
J. Hirschkop took the case pro bono.
The appeal process did not go smoothly. The ACLU first appealed to the Virginia courts arguing that the state anti-miscegenation violated
the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of equal protection under the law. When
the Virginia courts dragged their heels in hearing the case, lawyers brought a class action suit in
the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia. In January 1965, the three-judge District Court decided to allow the Lovings to present their constitutional claims
to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Virginia Supreme Court Justice Harry L. Carrico ruled against the couple
citing the Virginia Constitution. He also said that the law did not violate equal protection because both
defendants, regardless of their race,
received the same sentence for the violation. After modifying the original sentence to
allow the couple short visits to their families, Carrico upheld the conviction.
The Loving’s appeal of Justice
Carrico’s decision finally reached the Supreme Court. The Lovings, who personally did not seek the public spotlight, did not attend oral hearings but their lawyer Bernard Cohen conveyed to the Court
Richard’s simple personal appeal. “Mr. Cohen, tell the Court I love my wife,
and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.”
On June 12, 1967 the Court stunned the nation by unanimously—and
vigorously—upholding the Loving’s appeal.
In his opinion Chief Justice Earl
Warren wrote:
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,”
fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental
freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in
these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of
equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the
State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth
Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by
invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry,
or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot
be infringed by the State…
… There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose
independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this
classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages
involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand
on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.
In one fell swoop the anti-miscegenation laws of all states were rendered unenforceable. But many states were defiant in actually removing them from the books. It was not until 2000 that the last recalcitrant state, Alabama, repealed the ban on
inter-racial marriage that had been written into the state Constitution, when voters
overwhelming approved a referendum repealing the provision.
Since the ruling inter-racial
marriages, once both rare and dangerous, have
grown across the country and now make up more than 10% of all American
marriages.
As for the Lovings, they happily
returned to Virginia where they raised their three children. In 1971 a drunk driver struck their car.
Richard, then 51 years old, was killed
and Mildred was blinded in her right eye. She died of pneumonia on May 2, 2008 at the age of
68.
The precedent of the Loving case also became the basis for the rash of court decisions striking
down bans on same gender marriage and
was explicitly cited in case after case. In 2007 the very private Mildred Loving
expressed her support for marriage equality:
I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter
their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to
marry... 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.
On June 28, 2015 in the case of Obergefell
v. Hodges the Supreme Court held in a 5–4 decision that the Fourteenth
Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize
same-sex marriages granted in other states.
The annual celebration of Loving Day began at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City with a graduate
thesis project by Ken Tanabe, a graphic designer, who accidentally discovered the Loving case
while Googling something else. The initial celebration was held in New York
in 2004 as a multi-racial,
multi-cultural event and has spread
across the country via a web site and a network of dedicated volunteers.
Many see it as an occasion of special celebration for bi-racial and multi-racial individuals who want to celebrate all parts of their heritage. As it spread, celebrations have been held in
many cities and especially on college
campuses. Marriage Equality supporters also joined in the effort to spread
the celebration.
Petitions
have been made asking for Loving Day
to be recognized as an official national holiday.
While it is unlikely that any holiday that includes paid days off for Federal employees, is likely to be
passed anytime soon, declarations of
Loving Day as an unofficial holiday have
been passed in numerous cities and some states.
Happy Loving Day to all. Go out and spread the love.
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