Mildred Loving has died. It was Loving — born Mildred Jeter — who with her husband Richard challenged Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, and eventually won the landmark case of Loving v. Virginia in the year I was born, 1967. She and her husband were lucky in love and lucky in their surname, but not lucky in longevity. Mildred Loving was but 68 when she died, and her beloved Richard died decades ago in a car accident.
I’m keenly aware that there was a time within living memory when my wife and I could not have been married in most U.S. states. Sixty years ago this October, the California Supreme Court struck down the Golden State’s laws against mixed-race marriages, leading to their gradual repeal across the country and the final victory in the Loving case nineteen years later. If my wife and I were the age of my grandparents, our marriage would have been invalid under the laws of this state and most others; if we had been the age of my parents (who married in 1964) and living in Virginia, we might too have faced arrest or “deportation” of the sort the Lovings faced. It’s a queer thought.
So many of my students today happily date across racial lines; so many successful marriages in my family today are between folks of widely disparate backgrounds. I rejoice that this blending of color and culture has become so easy and so natural. I rejoice too in the sacrifice and the courage of couples like Mildred and Richard Loving, and am happy to think of them together again — at last — this day.
I am happy also to note that in her last public statement, as reported by the New York Times, Loving, with her unique moral authority on the subject, called for the right to marry to be extended to gays and lesbians.
I was in college when I learned that some people objec to, or are suspicious of, interracial marriages (some friends of my parents were one). At the time, I felt embarrassedly naive, but there are worse things to be than naive.
I grew up in Appalachia and I always knew that some people had issues with interracial relationships. Most of my family was of the opinion that we could be friends and hang out with whoever we wanted, but please don’t bring one home as a date. And they were considered enlightened and very tolerant by most of my friends and their families.
So I knew exactly what I was getting into when I married my non-white husband. Mostly, my family and friends from back home have reacted much better than I expected and they all love my husband, although I found their rationale for it being okay kind of odd and a little funny. Because, except for the fact that he is very dark, he isn’t really black because he isn’t of African descent. He’s Sri Lankan, so that makes it okay, apparently.
Mostly we don’t really have to deal with too many issues, though. There is the occasional dirty look from random strangers (usually elderly) but that’s really about it. But, that’s only possible because of people like the Lovings, who were willing to deal with all of that just to be able to be together and who paved the way for the rest of us.