Loving Day is an annual national celebration held on June 12, the

anniversary An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints ...

of the 1967

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decision ''

Loving v. Virginia ''Loving v. Virginia'', 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, laws ban ...

'' which struck down all

anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalization, criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different R ...

remaining in sixteen U.S. states. In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were U.S. state laws banning

interracial marriage Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. In 19 ...

, mainly forbidding marriage between two different races, until the

Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren replaced the deceased Fred M. Vinson as Chief Justice in 1953, and Warren remained in office until ...

ruled unanimously in 1967 that these state laws were unconstitutional. Chief Justice

Earl Warren Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitution ...

wrote in the court

majority opinion In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision. Not all cases have ...

that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State." Loving Day is not an officially recognized holiday by the U.S. government, despite attempts to make it so. Loving Day is the biggest multiracial celebration in the United States.

History

Loving Day originated with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case ''

'', which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case was brought by

Mildred Loving Mildred Delores Loving (née Jeter; July 22, 1939 – May 2, 2008) and her husband Richard Perry Loving (October 29, 1933 – June 29, 1975) were an American married couple who were the plaintiffs in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case '' Lov ...

(), a woman of Black and Native American descent classified as "colored" under Virginia's

Racial Integrity Act of 1924 In 1924, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the Racial Integrity Act. The act reinforced racial segregation by prohibiting interracial marriage and classifying as "white" a person "who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian ...

, and

Richard Loving Mildred Delores Loving (née Jeter; July 22, 1939 – May 2, 2008) and her husband Richard Perry Loving (October 29, 1933 – June 29, 1975) were an American married couple who were the plaintiffs in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case '' Lov ...

, a white man. The couple met in

Central Point, Virginia Central Point is an unincorporated community in Caroline County, in the U.S. state of Virginia. History ''Loving v. Virginia'' Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter grew up in Central Point. He was white and she was Rappahannock and African American ...

, when she was 11 and he was 17. Richard Loving was a family friend and they courted over the years. In June 1958, after she became pregnant, they married in Washington, D.C. Mildred Loving was 18 at the time and reportedly did not realize that interracial marriage was illegal. Five weeks following their wedding, they were arrested and returned to their hometown north of

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. They pleaded guilty to charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth." The Lovings were sentenced to a year in prison but avoided jail time by leaving Virginia and agreeing not to return to the state for 25 years. The Lovings moved to Washington, D.C. and began legal action by writing to

U.S. Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...

. Kennedy referred the case to the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

. Two lawyers, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, took up the case, arguing that the Virginia law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The

unanimously ruled in favor of the young couple on June 12, 1967, nine years after their wedding, and they returned to Virginia, where they lived with their three children. The court's ruling eliminated anti-miscegenation laws in all 16 states that had them. In 1975, Richard Loving died in a car accident. Mildred Loving died May 5, 2008, at the age of 68.

Legacy

Many organizations sponsor annual parties across the country, with Lovingday.org providing an online legal map, courtroom history of anti-miscegenation laws, as well as offering testimonials by and resources for interracial couples. Inspired by

Juneteenth Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining "June" and "nineteenth", it is celebrated on the anniversary of General Order No. 3, i ...

(which commemorates the end of slavery in the state of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

), Loving Day seeks both to commemorate and celebrate the Supreme Court's 1967 ruling, keeping its importance fresh in the minds of a generation which has grown up with interracial relationships being legal, as well as explore issues facing couples currently in interracial relationships. The Loving Day website features information, including court transcripts of the ''Loving v. Virginia'' case and of other court cases in which the legality of anti-miscegenation laws was challenged. To celebrate the holiday, people are encouraged to hold parties in which the case and its modern-day legacy are discussed, in smaller settings such as living rooms, backyards, etc., as well as in larger gatherings. Ken Tanabe is credited with forming the idea for Loving Day. He created the idea in 2004 for his senior thesis at Parsons the New School of Design.

In popular culture

*'' Loving'', a 2016 film starring

Ruth Negga Ruth Negga ( ; born 7 January 1981) is an Ethiopian-Irish actress known for the AMC television series ''Preacher'' and the film '' Loving''. For her portrayal of Mildred Loving in the latter, Negga received several major nominations from the Ac ...

and

Joel Edgerton Joel Edgerton (born 23 June 1974) is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his appearance in the ''Star Wars'' films ''Attack of the Clones'' (2002) and ''Revenge of the Sith'' (2005) as a young Owen Lars, a role he reprised i ...

as Mildred and Richard Loving, directed by

Jeff Nichols Jeff Nichols (born December 7, 1978) is an American film director and screenwriter from Little Rock, Arkansas. He studied filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Nichols is most known for his films ''Take Shelter'' (20 ...

. The film was selected to compete for the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

at the

2016 Cannes Film Festival The 69th Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 22 May 2016. Australian director George Miller was the President of the Jury for the main competition. French actor Laurent Lafitte was the host for the opening and closing ceremonies. On 15 Marc ...

, and was nominated for numerous awards, including a

Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...

nomination for Best Actor for Edgerton and

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

and

nominations for Negga. *A documentary, ''The Loving Story'', which features rare contemporaneous photographs of the couple and details the history of the case and references Loving Day, premiered on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

on Valentine's Day 2012. * ''New York Times'' best-selling author Heidi W. Durrow co-organized the second-largest celebration of Loving Day in the country with Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, during the annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival. * The annual flagship Loving Day Celebration in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

was featured in the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

History

Legacy

In popular culture

Outside the U.S.

See also

References

External links