(6/12/2024) By Rakeah Glass
Program Manager, The Institute for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion/Grants Management
On Wednesday, June 12, 2024, we celebrate Loving Day.
A Brief Historical Retrospective
It all began with Richard and Mildred Loving.
In June 1958, childhood neighbors turned sweethearts, Richard and Mildred, traveled from their home in Caroline County, Virginia to Washington, DC where they were married on June 2, 1958.
On June 14, Richard and Mildred were awakened in the middle of the night and arrested for violating The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 which included statues against interracial cohabitation and marriage.
The Lovings were later prosecuted and convicted of violating the state’s anti-miscegenation law. They were each sentenced to one year in the state penitentiary. To avoid jail time, they were ordered not to return to the state of Virginia for 25 years, lest they face re-arrest.
Displaced and without community, the Lovings left Virginia for Washington, DC but they did not remain quiet. Mildred Loving lobbied before Attorney General Robert Kennedy who forwarded her request for assistance to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). It was there, the Lovings found allies who fought on their behalf eventually obtaining a unanimous Supreme Court decision in their favor. In 1967, nine years after marrying, the Lovings returned home with their three children.
Legacy: Loving Day
In 2004, nearly 40 years after Loving v. Virginia, the landmark US Supreme Court decision that abolished anti-miscegenation statues and those deeming interracial marriage unlawful, Ken Tanabe, a student at Parson School of Design, launched the first Loving Day celebration.
After learning about the case while working on his graduate thesis, Tanabe understood that, in addition to the case’s historical precedent, Loving Day is about building community, which involves conversations about race, identity, and ethnicity, as the path toward acceptance.
To learn more about Loving Day, visit https://lovingday.org.
